This is the Millenium Centre in Cardiff where extensive use has been made
of the contrasting colours of slate.

In December 2007 the Irish construction group Rigcycle Ltd bought out the Welsh slate interests of Alfred McAlpine for £31 million.  This takeover followed a  financial scandal at McAlpines slate business which led to many redundancies and the closure of Cwt Y Bugail (Manod) quarry near Blaenau Ffestiniog.  Rigcycle's slate interests have been renamed Welsh Slate and they currently operate three quarries - Bethesda, Gloddfa Ganol (Oakeley) and Pen yr Orsedd - whose future seems secure.  Production is currently 1 million tonnes per annum.  The company plans to reduce its sawn slate operations but increase traditional split roofing slate and architectural and landscaping products.  Currently the workforce stands at 295 but it is planned to reduce this to 273 through natural wastage.  It is to be hoped that a secure future is now guaranteed following a long period of uncertainty.

 Elsewhere in the industry only two other quarries are being worked to any extent.  Llechwedd in Blaenau Ffestiniog rely to a great extent on their tourist business but continue to untop abandoned underground chambers to recover the 20 metre wide pillars of slate  which were left to hold up the roofs.  The small Berwyn Slate Company near Llangollen are proof that with adequate investment and a niche market it is still possible to succeed in the industry.  Wincilate at Aberllefenni near Corris continue to operate successfully as a slate finishing business with their raw material being imported from elsewhere.

Several small operations have also begun to rework various waste tips for hardcore and slate chippings - now much in demand as a decorative feature.  Welsh slate is still used for roofing purposes, both new and replacement while pulverised slate has many uses.  Other markets are cladding and flooring for prestige buildings and luxury items like kitchen worktops.  Small but relatively expensive items for the tourist industry are also widely produced.

Those quarries which still produce slate today use techniques and machinery very different to those one associates with the industry.  Modern quarrying can be a brutal process using large machines and often large amounts of explosives.  It is not a pretty sight but such techniques are necessary to ensure the industry's survival in a worldwide market place.

In April 2002 a new tax was introduced on Primary Aggregates (this is rock which is newly quarried).  The tax does not apply to Secondary Aggregates (rock which has already been quarried and then rejected as waste).  The process of slate quarrying generates vast amounts of waste rock.  There are estimated to be 730 million tonnes of slate waste in North Wales of which 370 million tonnes are in the Bethesda and Blaenau Ffestiniog districts.  Current extraction is increasing this amount by 6 million tonnes a year.  Slate waste could, theoretically, supply some 50% of UK crushed rock sales. This amounts to a market size of some 59 million tonnes/annum. It is widely used in North Wales for general fill and road building and these applications represent the major future use of slate waste.  Penrhyn quarry has recently started to send slate waste by sea from Port Penrhyn to Liverpool and Manchester and it is anticipated that up to 200,000 tons per year could be sent to each destination.  It is also planned to establish a rail terminal at Blaenau Ffestiniog from where slate waste from Oakeley quarry will be sent to English markets.

Sometimes, as the old waste heaps are unstable, they are landscaped or in some cases removed altogether.  In the case of the Nantlle Valley where the slate was extracted from the floor of the valley beneath the water table, as soon as pumping ceased then the pit rapidly filled with water.  The best example of this is Dorothea Quarry where a pool up to 200 metres deep has formed.  Now a popular, although unofficial, diving centre its cold waters have claimed several lives.    In many cases the derelict quarries are too remote to reach nowadays and often remain in the state they were in at closure.  The waste heaps being visible for miles and a reminder to all of times gone by.

This line up of modern dumper trucks is at what was McAlpines Cwt y Bugail quarry.  The vehicle on the left
is a water sprayer used to keep down dust levels.  Cwt y Bugail quarry closed in September 2007.

A huge diamond tipped saw in use at Berwyn Slate near Llangollen.

Examples of the reworking of some of the old Fotty & Bowydd and Maenofferen Quarry workings.  The underground workings were held up by pillars of slate up to 20 metres in width.  Modern methods involve collapsing the area above the underground pillars and their extraction using modern earth moving machinery.  The untopping process is a brutal reworking which removes all traces of the underground adits, chambers and access tramways of the old workings.

The diagonal line is an old gravity incline.  The newly exposed rock shows where untopping is taking place.

Three levels of old underground workings and their supporting pillars are exposed to the light of day for the first time.  It was always a temptation to make these supporting pillars as thin as possible - a process fraught with danger.  In the case of the "Great Fall" in Blaenau Ffestiniog in 1882 up to 6 million tons of rock fell underground at the Welsh Slate Company causing considerable damage to that working and to adjacent ones.  Often after a quarry had closed unofficial extraction of these pillars took place, a process known as pillar robbing.  This could result in roof falls and subsidence of the area above and around the quarry.

In the view above a tip is being reworked to produce slate chippings of various sizes.  Compare the
height of the tip with the modern yellow excavator at the bottom right!

This newly exposed rock awaits wire cutting at Berwyn Slate.

Freshly cut slabs await delivery at Berwyn Slate.

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