Anglesey Barracks: A Glimpse into History

These cottages were built in the 1870s as housing for quarrymen who lived too far away to return home each night. There are two rows of 11 cottages built using granite blocks. These groups of houses were known as barracks. This one is called Dre Newydd or the Anglesey Barracks, because many Dinorwig quarrymen travelled from Anglesey. However, not all of the men who lived here were from Anglesey.

Men travelled from many communities in Gwynedd and Anglesey to work at the quarry. They usually returned home at the weekend. Barracks were built by the quarry owners to house these workers. The small two-room cottages had little protection from the elements, and living conditions were extremely poor.

Quarrymen living in the barracks visited Deiniolen, Dinorwig and Llanberis to attend religious meetings and relax in the village pubs. Deiniolen was known by the Anglesey workers as Llanbabo, after the village of that name on the island.

When the quarrying began in the late 1780s, most quarry workers were local. As the slate industry grew, workers began to travel from further afield. Initially they were housed in small huts spread across the quarry. These were often placed in unwelcoming and difficult-to-reach areas. One such site was the Aberdaron gallery – 600 metres or 2,000ft above sea level!

Dinorwig supervisor Gruffydd Ellis began the process of building new barracks on more suitable sites. The first was Yr Hen Dre, which consisted of seven cottages in a row. It was followed by Dre Newydd, here, in a lower part of the quarry.

On 14 March 1894 one of the Anglesey quarrymen met a violent death at his barracks. Hugh Roberts, 52, was trying to thaw a cartridge of dynamite for the day’s work when it exploded. His “head was shattered to pieces . . . and a large portion of the building was demolished”. The other residents had just left the barracks for work, otherwise many would have been killed.

Hugh was born in Aberffraw and lived in Llangristiolus, Anglesey, with his wife and six children. By 1891 he was a “rockman” at Dinorwig quarry, staying at the barracks during the week. After his death, quarry manager WW Vivian wrote to a newspaper to explain that Hugh had received all necessary instructions, in English and Welsh, about the dangers of dynamite.

Dinorwic Quarry includes the remains of the Braich levels of the Dinorwic Slate Quarry which operated from around 1770 to 1969. Many of the levels remain intact following the construction of Dinorwic Pumped Storage Power Station. The series of ‘A’ inclines from Gilfach Ddu and the Anglesey barracks have been scheduled and preserved.

The surviving remains of the site include four substantial counterbalanced inclines, complete with rails, sleepers and drumhouses, a weighbridge house, locomotive sheds, water tanks and an office and caban. There is also a blondin with winding house and an electric compressor house. There is a large slate mill with two integral engine houses and saws, catslide extension and smithing hearth.

In 1972 the site opened to the public as a museum. Equipment was collected from other slate quarries and parts of the site were restored. It is now the National Slate Museum and part of the National Museum of Wales.The sudden closure of the quarry in 1969 meant that many buildings, structures and machines survived on some of the higher, more remote levels. The very visible nature of the workings when viewed from the slopes of Snowdon or across Peris lake bring home the form and extent of the quarry, and the construction of a major pumped storage scheme in the lower part of the quarry from 1975 to 1984 added to the sense of the ‘engineering sublime’.

This area and the Ogwen valley component part of the proposed site have much in common but also significant points of difference. Whereas part of Penrhyn quarry is active, Dinorwic is entirely relict, and offers both the specialist and the interested visitor a text-book explanation of slate-quarrying practice from the late eighteenth century to the 1960s.

Dinorwic Series
Episode 1:    • Abandoned Welsh Slate Mine FROZEN In Time ...  
Episode 2:    • Disaster on the Dinorwic Gravity Railway  
Episode 3    • Anglesey Barracks: A Glimpse into History  

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