|
Since it stopped being used in 1969, Dinorwic Quarry in Wales has been home to The National Slate Museum. In fact, the entire quarry area was designated as Padarn Country Park, and the museum resides within that park.
Why have a National Slate Museum? Not only was slate one of the main exports of Wales for a number of years, slate quarries were the top employers of Welsh men from 1760 to 1879. The National Slate Museum serves to educate about those times, and about the role of slate in the development of modern Wales.
The National Slate Museum is a part of the larger National Museum Wales. It is also an anchor point on the European Route of Industrial Heritage, a project devoted to educating tourists about Europe's industrial history.
The use of locomotives in slate transport marked a significant milestone in the industrialization of the slate industry; and in Wales in general. Dinorwic was a modern quarry of its time, so several workshops were built in 1870 to support the quarry and its means of transport � its locomotives. The National Slate Museum is located in one of those workshops, built so long ago.
The museum features a waterwheel, also built in 1870, that measures more than 50 feet in diameter. It is mainland Britain's largest working waterwheel, and you can walk around the many walkways in the museum to see it from different angles.
Also, since the museum's reopening in 1999, interested parties are able to see displays that depict the actual Victorian-era cottages that the slateworkers lived in at Tanygrisiau, a different Welsh town with its own shocking and magical history. The Victorian cottages were carefully taken apart stone by stone and rebuilt near That National Slate Museum, so that visitors can see firsthand what life was like for the Victorian slateworker.
For an even more in-depth glance at the quarry workers' lives, the museum also offers a multi-media display called To Steal a Mountain, which depicts everyday life for the quarry worker. At the height of the quarry's slate production over 3000 men worked there. The quarry closed for good in 1969, but there were still lots of quarry workers in the area to help compile the information presented at The National Slate Museum.
The museum opened for the first time in 1972, with actual quarry workers employed to show their trade with real equipment taken from other quarries in Wales. The museum is situated in a picturesque area of Wales, near Llyn Padarn, a glacial lake. The realistic feel of the historic parts of the museum, along with the breathtaking scenery, won The National Slate Museum the "Sense of Place Award" from the Wales Tourist Board.
Schools, families, tourists, and locals enjoy the events and exhibits at The National Slate Museum. And, as Wales moves with the times, even the museum dedicated to the "industry which roofed the industrial revolution" cares about the environment and sustainability, which they show with their current exhibit, "Biodiversity � Who cares?
|
