Llanberis
In the nineteenth century, Llanberis became one of the most significant centres of the North Wales slate industry, with the vast Dinorwig Quarry providing employment for thousands of local people and shaping the community for generations. The village expanded rapidly as quarrying operations grew, developing into a thriving industrial settlement built around the skills, determination, and hard work of quarrymen and their families. At its height, Dinorwig Quarry was one of the largest slate quarries in the world, producing high-quality roofing slate that was exported across Britain and to international markets. The success of the industry led to the construction of workers’ housing, chapels, schools, and community facilities, transforming Llanberis from a small rural village into an important industrial hub at the foot of Yr Wyddfa.
Slate from Dinorwig was transported via an extensive network of inclines and tramways to Port Dinorwic (Y Felinheli), where it was shipped to customers throughout Britain and overseas. Although large-scale slate production declined during the twentieth century, the industry’s influence remains deeply embedded in Llanberis’ landscape, culture, and identity. Today, the village’s industrial heritage continues to attract visitors from around the world, forming an important part of the UNESCO World Heritage Slate Landscape of Northwest Wales and preserving Llanberis’ connection to the rich history of Welsh slate quarrying.
Howard Bowcott
Sculptor Howard Bowcott is based in the Ffestiniog slate valley and works on public art projects across the UK. He inevitably feels a special connection with the landscape and industrial heritage of his chosen home, and this affinity has fed into much of his work over the last fifty years.
Taking small elements of slate then building them into often sizeable structures, Howard’s work references the processes at work in the slate-quarrying landscape, as well as the hands that shaped it. Sculpture for Howard is very much about touch and making a material come alive. Splitting a slate from Llanberis reveals a story that started over 500 million years ago – stacking the slates into this sculpture alongside text about the community and the quarries highlights the human element of that story and creates a new reading of the rock.
READING THE ROCK - THE STORIES BEHIND THE TEXT ON THE LLANBERIS COLUMN.
The title of the artwork plays upon the skill of the quarryman to read the rock in order to create slates. Reading the words on the sculpture gives some insight into that skill and the community that supported it.
The bands of text echo the horizontal levels and diagonal inclines in the quarries. The wording draws upon historical research and community outreach, and captures the essence of this interface between community, quarry and landscape. Each shaped the other.
Spiralling within the layers of slate is a story that rises up the column, starting at the base with a young couple meeting at the fair. Through birth and growing up in harsh circumstances, you can follow the life of a boy as he attends school and chapel then starts in the quarries as an apprentice. Rising up the levels he encounters camaraderie but an equally challenging environment, including accidents on the rockface and eventually the end of work in the quarry.
The two languages of Welsh and English are deliberately interwoven, and my heartfelt thanks are due to all who helped and contributed with ideas. A special thankyou however to my Welsh language collaborator on much of the text, Gwenlli Haf Evans. Our personal approach to both the Welsh and English text has been to not simply create a translation, but a celebration of two languages.
Here is an insight into the text and to some of the words that excited us, starting from the base up, in order to make the story easier to follow here on the written page.
Y CYCHWYN + LOVE AT THE FAIR
The author T Rowland Hughes was born in Llanberis in 1903, so appropriately the title of his 1947 novel, Y CYCHWYN, (THE BEGINNING) starts the story built into the pillar. Government reports on the quarrying community were written by comfortably-off figures from outside the Welsh-speaking community and whilst they rarely criticised management and working methods, they were often highly critical of the quarrying community itself, such as the common occurrence of meeting a future partner at the fair. The local community had of course no opportunity to go to society balls.
CRI FACH AR GARREG YR AELWYD - A NEW CRY BY THE HEARTH
Having met at the fair and subsequently married, our couple have their first child. All births were at home, overseen by the women of the community. Hearth and birth were both central aspects of community life. This text is engraved on the wonderful red slate of the nearby Glynrhonwy quarry, used throughout this column where the presence of blood is implied.
WYTHNOS LWGU - TE A BARA TAN SADWRN SETLO - LEAN WEEK - TEA AND BREAD UNTIL PAYDAY
Wythnos lwgu (starving week) refers to the week before the main monthly pay day, the Saturday when bills could be paid. After pay day there was a little more money to buy food, but the quarrymen's diet was often criticised for comprising little more than bread and butter with stewed tea. Our young couple have another mouth to feed and there is no NHS for medical care.
MANGL ANFFAWD YN GWASGU POB CEINIOG - MISFORTUNE IN THE PENNIES WRUNG FROM THE MANGLE
The mangle and the act of collecting money for a widow to buy one, came up many times in community outreach and research. If there was a bad injury or death in the quarry, the men would collect money to give to the wife or widow to buy a mangle and take in washing to earn a few pennies. Llanberis was already a tourist destination by the 1830’s so the opportunity to take in washing was well-established - but it could not replace a husband and wage earner.
DYN Y TU ÔL I BOB LLECHEN, TEULU Y TU ÔL I BOB DYN - A MAN BEHIND EVERY SLATE AND A FAMILY BEHIND EVERY MAN
An evocative phrase that captures the full picture of the slate quarry community, and the inspiration for this artwork.
DAN LYGAD CANSEN, CAPEL A CHABAN - SCHOOL, CHAPEL AND CABAN TAUGHT AND JUDGED
Education and judgement both came from within the community: at school, from the chapel pulpit and then in the quarry itself at the caban, the lunchtime meeting place of the quarrymen situated on each level of the quarry and a venue for the discussion of politics, topics of the day and a focus for self-education, alongside recitation and poetry competitions.
CRAIG YR UNDEB - UNITE
Craig yr Undeb was a rocky knoll at the north end of Llyn Padarn and became famous as the meeting place of the North Wales Quarrymen's Union, since it was on land that did not belong to the Assheton-Smiths, who like the majority of quarry owners, were opposed to the formation of a trade union. From 1874 to 1922 the union was central to improving working conditions for the men, but for it to succeed it had to unite the workforce within the quarry and the surrounding slate quarry areas. With up to 3,000 men at Dinorwig at its peak, and tens of thousands of men elsewhere in other quarries, the struggle to unite different voices was a constant imperative.
NID OES BRADWR YN Y TŶ HWN - NO TRAITOR IN THIS HOUSE
This well-known phrase, printed on card and displayed in the window of a striker's house, links wives and family with the struggle for adequate wages and conditions. The hardship of a strike was felt by all. It was a distressing moment when a card had to be removed, should a striker have to return to work to avoid having no food, healthcare or money to pay rent. Many families moved away in such circumstances and the scars remained in the community long afterwards.
RWBELWR BACH, EFO'R HOGIA I GANOL PERYG - A YOUNG RUBBLER AMID BANTER AND DANGER
Leaving school at just 12 or 14 our young lad would work in the quarry as an apprentice for several years, starting as a rubbler, tipping waste rock and hoping for the occasional block of slate to try his hand at splitting. In his young teenage years, he was immersed in a world of harsh physical work and adult camaraderie, sometimes cruel banter and always physical danger.
CRI FAWR O WYNEB Y GRAIG; CODI DR DAN O LAW I LAW - A CRY FROM THE ROCKFACE; PASSING DOCTOR DAN FROM HAND TO HAND
There were frequent accidents in the quarry, often in inaccessible places high on the rockface. Doctor Dan is well remembered in Llanberis and was highly respected by the quarrymen. They would form a human chain to pass the doctor across the rockface to an injured rockman. The cry of the injured on this text band deliberately echoes the cry of the baby in Band 2 , but the reader is free to build their own narrative. O LAW I LAW is the title of the 1943 novel by T Rowland Hughes and is picked out in light grey paint, unlike the normal text which does not have paint. When the pillar is wet, the three book titles about slate quarry communities reveal themselves.
CHWALFA – FRACTURE
T Rowland Hughes wrote his novel CHWALFA (UPHEAVAL) in 1946. An accident at work could lead to social upheaval as there was little financial support available if a quarryman could not work. A very common injury was crushing and fractured bones. The quarry hospital directly across the lake from the sculpture became a nationally recognised pioneer in treating such injuries and was at the forefront of medical advances such as x rays.
The use of Glynrhonwy red slate with a fracture indicated in black granite alludes to this. The word fracture is also a reference to geology, working the rock and the social upheaval within a family and a community when a bad accident occurred.
CADW TŶ A NYRSIO CLAF – HOUSEWIFE AND NURSE
Continuing the use of Glynrhonwy red slate with a black granite insert, this band encapsulates the nursing of an injury. Women played a central role in nursing the injured, whether In the quarry hospital or at home. A bad injury or the onset of severe lung disease brought about by slate dust would lead to lengthy invalidity at home. Women were the principal carers, whilst at the same time trying to run a household.
CYMRAEG AR Y PONCIAU, ENGLISH FROM ABOVE
A phrase that equates the topography of the quarry with the linguistic reality of life for the ordinary quarryman. The levels (ponciau) in the quarry are a defining feature of the Dinorwig landscape. The men were also in another sense all working on one level, sharing the harsh conditions of the exposed mountainside. The workers spoke Welsh (Cymraeg) between themselves; the management instructed them in English.
YNO DY HUN Â'TH FORTHWYL A CHŶN - There you are with your hammer and chisel.
The sentiment of taking orders from above but having to do the real work is echoed in this heartfelt phrase by T. H. Jones (Twm Bethel) a Llanberis poet and quarryman who worked high up on the Pen Garret level for many years.
BOUND IN A BARGAIN WITH THE ROCK
The contentious system of the 'bargain' to negotiate payment for work is referenced here, alluding to the harsh reality of carving a living high on the mountainside. A team of usually four quarrymen (two on the rockface and two dressing the slates) had to negotiate with the management representatives to agree a price for working the rock. The price was determined as much by the whim of the management as the quality of the rock.
NI CHLYWIR Y GLOCSAN FYTH ETO’N LLANBÊR - NO MORE THE BEAT OF HOBNAIL BOOTS
The sound of hobnail boots was a popular reference at community outreach sessions. The Welsh is another quote from Llanberis poet and quarryman T. H. Jones (Twm Bethel) as hobnail boots were often colloquially called clogs. Older residents recall the sound of hobnail boots drumming on the slate paths as the quarrymen ended work for the day and returned home – the beating sound echoing across the waters was the sign to start cooking the evening meal. This distinctive sound in the valley stopped abruptly in 1969.
SEGUR EIN GER – ABANDONING OUR TOOLS
A phrase for when a quarryman stopped working in the quarry or passed away, or the quarry closed.
When was our quarryman? Did he abandon his tools? And when we talk of the slate industry, what period do we mean? The continuity lies in the tools and the reading of the rock, a deep understanding articulated by hammer and chisel. Pause for a moment, then reflect that to abandon tools is more than just a phrase.
ALICE
The industry, hard work and camaraderie of the Dinorwig quarry is now a memory, but the dramatically changed landscape that rises level by level up the mountain still stands as testament to the quarrymen, and to the community that supported them. Over the years the levels of the quarry have acquired other names invented by climbers that pay no honour to the men who once worked the rockface. Each level originally acquired its name from current events, placenames, racehorses and family members. The terraces of rock rise to some two thousand feet above Llyn Peris, via California, Abyssinia and Australia. At the very top sits Alice, named after one of the quarry owner’s granddaughters.
To look down from Alice is to look down upon nearly 200 years of industry and community. Sited at village level, this sculpture stands as testament to the hands that shaped a landscape and to a community that was created by it.
Howard Bowcott 2026