UKC

An extract from Peter Goulding's upcoming 'Slatehead: The Adventure of Britain's Slate-climbing Scene.' This article delves into the quarrymen and how they once climbed and navigated this grey and slippery landscape for the exploitation of slate in the 19th and 20th centuries, a source of vital employment in the area; how the decline and decay of the industry then saw a spike in interest in climbing as a leisure activity particularly in the 1980s and then, in turn, how this 'professionalisation' of climbing has become another mechanism of employing people

Many years ago I was talking with a colleague who was from Llanberis.  During WW2 the quarries were used as an ammunition store and his father was on sentry duty at night.  He walked up to his father's post by the Bus Stop quarry and after some persuasion his father, who at this late stage in the war was armed with a machine gun let off a short burst hence some of the scarring on the slate of Rippled slab.

Well done Pete 😊 looking forward to reading the book

Always look out for references of Cliff Philips in anything slate related. I knew Cliff in the '90s, and climbed many times with him. He was quite a character then too! A dying breed. I assume he's still around in Birmingham somewhere.

I remember walking around the quarry's in the late 70's it was just like they up and went everything was just left, newspapers on tables calendars on the walls, in the pattern shops the wood patterns was ready for casting with shelves of incredible patterns the skills of these persons now lost.