Launder pillars on the waste heap with Moel Wnion shrouded in mist in the background
| Date | 5 March 2011 | ||
| Location | Bryn Hafod-y-wern, Llanllechid | SH 63219 69223; 53.20242°N, 4.04926°W | |
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Information |
The quarry was operated by the Pennant family from the 1780s. The lease passed out of the hands of the Penrhyn estate in the 1820s and the Royal Bangor Slate Company, established in London in 1845, later took over. Plans to connect the quarry to the Chester-Holyhead railway at Abergwyngregyn came to nothing, and the quarry was also affected by industrial unrest in the 1880s. Water to power the quarry came from Cwm Caseg via a leat five miles long. The water supply was cut off in 1889. The hazardous flooded quarry pit is 50m deep and contains dumped unexploded World War II bombs and barbed wire. It is also the grave of a diver who died there in the 1970s.
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Flooded quarry pit, Bryn Hafod-y-wern
GeoTopoi 
Very nice pic of the pit and comprehensive history. AJR’s Slate Gazetteer mentions the owner’s house still in habited condition, did you see that? Looks like a good site for a mooch!
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If that is Bryn Hall (right next to the quarry), then yes I did. It used to be a Youth Hostel for a while, but is now a private residence.
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I’ve just seen your posting of last March about Bryn Hall, nr Llanllechid. I stayed there once when it was a Youth Hostel in the late 1950s. It was run by a distant relative, a woman on her own but whose name now escapes me. I’ve seen the Hostel of those days referred to in one account as ‘cheerless’, which I’m afraid is pretty much how I found it, more or less. I wonder what the warden’s name was. I remember the tap water sometimes ran blue, from the slate.
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I always thought the distance of the leat which originates at afon wen was 8 miles and not 5 miles as you state???
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I’m not entirely sure, perhaps you are right – the references I have seen mention 5 miles / 7 km, e.g. :
http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/827483
http://www.aditnow.co.uk/community/viewtopic.aspx?t=2471
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I was born at Bryn Hall in 1960 when it was a Youth Hostel and my parents were the wardens. I remember my father telling me that he once threw a 1914-18 WW1 Colt revolver and ammunition into the quarry when ‘Silent Ellis’, the local bobby’, was chasing around for undisclosed firearms. I was last there to scatter his ashes around the O.S, triangle on top of Moel Wnion as requested by him.
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Thanks for dropping by and commenting Mike
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Hi Mike. We have just bought Bryn Hall. Scratched into the slate doorstep is M & B W 1960. Could this be your parents?
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Is it certain that the caseg leat connects to the bryn hall reservoir; always thought it did, though sources never say as much and indeed the last 1:25 of the area does not show it so.I`ve looked for the continuation-again today-for so long and cannot see the connection north of afon ffrydlas, just north of the stream, yet 100 metres north west the leat is clear as is the continuation around gryns western slope ?
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This quarry is unique…
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