'Victorian Slate: Product and Manufacturers in Gwynedd and Beyond'
by Pred Hughes
A4 paperback
72 pages
Bilingual
The book broadly explains what other manufacturing industries used slate for a variety of products rather than just for roofing. It contains many interesting photos and contemporary documents which illustrate the onset of the industrial revolution, describing what happened during the 19th century in Caernarfonshire and Meirionnydd as the slate industry rapidly grew to roof the ever growing towns and villages of the UK, as well as the far reaches of the British Empire; roofing slates were the dominant product of the mines and quarries of Caernarfonshire and Meirionnydd.
The book offers a broad background about other slate products, to their manufacturers - who were mostly independent from the quarries and mines - and to their premises. The output from these yards include slate tanks/vats for home, farms and industries, door and window sills, lavatories/urinals, flooring, shelving, snooker, billiard and bagatelle beds, memorial head stones, kerbs and tombs, church altars, mantle clocks and fire surrounds.
This is the second book written by Pred Hughes, his first was called 'Foundries Amidst the Slate Industry of North West Wales' printed in 2015. This book again shows Pred's passion for the history of Victorian industry in the area. Pred is a local historian with a deep interest in slate quarrying and mining in North Wales having worked in the slate industry in Blaenau Ffestiniog and Dyffryn Nantlle for 22 years.
