The industry
is about 1% of what it used to be and the steam trains are busy with passengers
not freight. Stepping off the train your eyes are drawn through twin pillars
towards the rocky horizons that frame the town. Each pillar made with 9,000 stacked
slates from Llechwedd quarry, a CROESO welcome and directions indicated by the
motif of a slate splitter’s chisel. Steps to the street are framed by four huge
chisel-shape sculptures with slates stacked at an angle; not any old angle but 30°,
the typical lie of a bed of Blaenau slate.
Bands of
single line poetry encircle the pillars and also dissect the town’s pavements.
Some, such as ‘a bracelet of a town on
the bone of the rock’, by famous poets and others by local schoolchildren. All carved in Welsh with translations provided
online and in booklets. Reading these and their explanations brings a deep
insight to the community past and present. Even the bus shelters are a
revelation with ‘fat ladies’ on the floors! Most sizes of slate were named
after aristocratic women such as ‘duchess’, ‘marchioness’, ‘narrow lady’ and so
on. Replicas with their names and dimensions are embedded in the ground.
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| Howard working on the river of slate |
Across the
street is another set of twin pillars with a small quarry train pulling slate
wagons down from the marshalling yard. But before you reach this, stop and
admire the river of slate, a pavement mosaic with a river running down the
middle. On either side are the names of over 350 quarries from across Wales
each carved into a block of slate that matches the colour from that particular
quarry. A rich mix of greys, reds, purples and greens set in alphabetic order.
Local artist
Howard Bowcott, creator of the works, described the significance of the river: ‘it symbolises the formation of slate with river
mud washed out to sea four or five hundred million years ago. The river was
also the vital corridor for exporting slate before the Ffestiniog Railway
opened in 1836.’
Each bank of
the river has a line of poetry by Gwyn Thomas, one in Welsh and one in English.
‘Time flows on and water too but not the
life of a rockman’ and ‘Men die. The
rocks and empty darkness of these mountains endure’. Worked out slate
chambers are the ‘empty darkness’ and
both poems reflect the perilous work conditions of the ‘rockmen’ and their transience, but a blink compared to the life of
rock.
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| A version of the Lightning Strike by David Nash |
London has
the Shard and the Gherkin but we’ve got our Chisels and the Lightning Strike.
This sculpture by David Nash reflects the zig-zag shape of
the quarryman’s path descending the slate spoil from the Oakeley quarry. It now
stands on the main road midway between the quarry and the centre of town – the
only Nash work of art on permanent display in Wales.
If words and
symbols of Blaenau’s slate heritage are not enough, keep on walking about ten
minutes out of town to Llechwedd Slate Caverns where you can literally get
beneath the surface of it all. They offer a choice of two underground tours and
provide exhibits that bring to life the incredible stories of rock cannons and wild
cars. This is also the place for downhill biking; a bit like skiing, the riders
buy a ‘lift pass’ for the day hurtling down a choice of runs ranging from the
gentle blue to the double black. It makes a good spectator sport.
Everywhere
is unique but Blaenau takes the biscuit! Local artist Falcon Hildred says in
his recent book ’I believe that Blaenau
Ffestiniog and its landscape are the best and most complete surviving industrial landscape
in Britain’. It’s not stuffed away
in museums but all around you. Shops are one-offs where you buy bread from a
baker, local meat from a butcher and discuss the finer points of DIY with the
ironmonger. Cafés are homely and good value.
No amount of
words can describe this place, it must be experienced. If you’ve been before, you
won’t recognise it.
