The Cwt y Bugail Quarry was a slate quarry

Slate industry in Wales

The slate industry in Wales began during the Roman period when slate was used to roof the fort at Segontium, now Caernarfon. The slate industry grew slowly until the early 18th century, then expanded rapidly until the late 19th century, at which time the most important slate producing areas were in...

 located east of Blaenau Ffestiniog

Blaenau Ffestiniog

Blaenau Ffestiniog is a town in Gwynedd, north-west Wales. It has a population of 5,000, including Llan Ffestiniog, which makes it the third largest town in Gwynedd, behind Caernarfon & Porthmadog. Although the population reached 12,000 at the peak of the slate industry, the population fell due to...

 in Wales

Wales

Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

. It was first worked as a trial pit around 1840. Continuous production began in 1863 and continued until closure in 1961. The quarry was connected to the Ffestiniog Railway

Ffestiniog Railway

The Ffestiniog Railway is a narrow gauge heritage railway, located in Gwynedd, Wales. It is a major tourist attraction located mainly within the Snowdonia National Park....

 at Duffws Station via the Rhiwbach Tramway

Rhiwbach Tramway

The Rhiwbach Tramway was a British industrial narrow gauge railway connecting the remote slate quarries east of the Blaenau Ffestiniog with the Ffestiniog Railway.- History :The tramway was built by the Festiniog Slate Quarry Co. Ltd...

.

History

Adam Gregory leased the Blaen y Cwm Quarry

Blaen y Cwm Quarry

The Blaen y Cwm Quarry was a slate quarry located east of Blaenau Ffestiniog in Wales. It was first worked in some time between 1813 and 1818 and sporadically after that until 1914...

 above Blaenau Ffestiniog from 1838 to 1849. During this time he made several trial workings at Cwt y Bugail. In 1863 Hugh Beaver Roberts sold half his interest in the Cwt y Bugail land to a consortium who formed the New Cwt y Bugail Slate Company Ltd. to begin production on the site. This company worked the quarry until 1875 when the quarry was sold to the Bugail Slate Quarry Company Ltd. under the chairmanship of Thomas Scott of Edinburgh

Edinburgh

Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...

; during this period the quarry was known locally as 'y cwmni Ysgottiad' ("the Scottish Enterprise").

Around 1877 the quarry was taken over by Owen Williams from the nearby village of Penmachno

Penmachno

Penmachno is a village in the isolated upland valley of Cwm Penmachno, 4 miles south of Betws-y-Coed in the county of Conwy, north Wales.It is renowned as the home of Bishop William Morgan , who lived at Tŷ Mawr, Y Wybrnant, near the village. He was one of the leading scholars of his day, having...

. He ran Cwt y Bugail for the next thirty years and was the great-grandfather of Owen Glyn Williams who managed the quarry in the 1980s.

Production of slate peaked in 1877 and began dwindling significantly from 1884 onwards. By 1887 the quarry was closed, but Owen Williams formed a worker's cooperative and began working the quarry in 1888. The cooperative purchased the quarry from the Bugail Slate Quarry Co. for a nominal fee in 1892 Modest production with 60 men employed continued until 1898 when another gradual decline set in. In 1908 a rock fall in the quarry caused the company to fall into debt and it went into receivership in 1899. The receiver sold the quarry to Cadwalader Owen Roberts of Betwys y Coed for a nominal sum.

The quarry continued operating under the name the New Welsh Slate Quarry. Cadwalader Pierce took over as manager in 1911 repairing some of the damage from the rock fall. The quarry continued producing until 1912 but after that only already worked slate was dispatched and the quarry closed again in April 1914.

Roberts reopened Cwt y Bugail in 1919 after the First World War and worked it for three more years, but again the enterprise failed and the quarry closed.

In 1923 Tudor Roberts of Glanypwll set up the Cwt y Bugail Slate Quarries Ltd. to purchase and work the quarry. This company owned the quarry until 1961, though from 1946 it was sub-leased to the nearby Maenofferen Quarry

Maenofferen Quarry

Maenofferen Quarry is a major slate quarry in the town of Blaenau Ffestiniog, north Wales and one of the major users of the Ffestiniog Railway. It continues to produce crushed slate on a limited scale under the ownership of the nearby Llechwedd quarry....

 to which it was connected by the Rhiwbach Tramway. From 1956 onwards the quarry was sub-leased to Manod Slate Quarries Ltd. which operated the Graig Ddu Quarry to the south.

In 1961 the Cwt y Bugail company was taken over by a consortium led by Dafydd Price, who also purchased Graig Ddu which at this time was a much more productive quarry. Some sporadic slate extraction continued at Cwt y Bugail until 1972.

A subsidiary of Ffestiniog Slate Quarry Ltd. purchased the land and mineral rights to Cwt y Bugail in 1985. Ffestiniog Slate Quarries also owned the Oakeley Slate Quarry in Blaenau Ffestiniog and in 1997 was taken over by the McAlpines group, although the quarry has not been worked since the 1970s.

Connection to the Rhiwbach Tramway

Despite its remote location, Cwt y Bugail was able to transport its production via the Rhiwbach Tramway

Rhiwbach Tramway

The Rhiwbach Tramway was a British industrial narrow gauge railway connecting the remote slate quarries east of the Blaenau Ffestiniog with the Ffestiniog Railway.- History :The tramway was built by the Festiniog Slate Quarry Co. Ltd...

 which fed the Ffestiniog Railway

Ffestiniog Railway

The Ffestiniog Railway is a narrow gauge heritage railway, located in Gwynedd, Wales. It is a major tourist attraction located mainly within the Snowdonia National Park....

 at Blaenau Ffestiniog. The tramway was built by the Festiniog Slate Quarry Co. Ltd. in 1863 to connect its Rhiwbach Quarry with the Ffestiniog Railway. As part of the agreement that allowed the construction of the tramway over private land, the Cwt y Bugail quarry was allowed to use the tramway for its slate output.

The tramway continued to be the primary transport link for the quarry for nearly a hundred years. When the Rhiwbach Quarry closed in 1953, Cwt y Bugail became the sole remaining user of the upper portion of the tramway, continuing until the quarry closure of 1961.

Internal tramways

Internally the quarry connected to the tramway via a cable hauled incline

Cable railway

A cable railway is a steeply graded railway that uses a cable or rope to haul trains.-Introduction:...

 that lifted the loaded slate wagons approximately 10 feet from the quarry's mill level to the junction with the tramway.

Within the quarry were eleven or twelve inclines used at various periods to access the slate workings and tipping areas. These were connected to the mill via lightly laid tramways using bridge and flat bottom rail. Although the majority of this track was laid to gauge to match the Rhiwbach Tramway, there is some evidence that the earliest tramways in the quarry were laid to gauge.

Locomotives

For most of the quarry's existence, the internal tramways were worked by hand or horse power. From the late 1940s a series of internal combustion locomotives are known to have worked in the quarry:

Builder	Type	Works Number	Built	Notes
Ruston and Hornsby Ruston (engine builder) Ruston & Hornsby, later known as Ruston, was an industrial equipment manufacturer in Lincoln, England, the company's history going back to 1840. The company is best known as a manufacturer of narrow and standard gauge diesel locomotives and also of steam shovels. Other products included cars, steam...	4wD 20HP	223687	1944	Purchased before 1949 from the Ministry of Supply, used on the Rhiwbach Tramway from 1953 to 1961, scrapped between 1974 and 1977
Hibberd F. C. Hibberd & Co Ltd F. C. Hibberd & Co Ltd was a British locomotive-building company founded in 1927 to build industrial petrol and diesel locomotives. In 1932 the company acquired the goodwill of James and Frederick Howard Ltd...	4wD 10HP		c. 1925	Scrapped in 1960
Lister	4wD 6HP	3742	1931	Purchased from Groesyddwyafon Quarry before 1953. Scrapped, gearbox reused in a winch
Hunslet Hunslet Engine Company The Hunslet Engine Company is a British locomotive-building company founded in 1864 at Jack Lane, Hunslet, Leeds, West Yorkshire, England by John Towlerton Leather, a civil engineering contractor, who appointed James Campbell as his Works Manager.In 1871, James Campbell bought the company for...	4wD 20HP	2024	1940	Purchased from the Trefor granite quarry between 1962 and 1964, but too large for the adit and not used at Cwt y Bugail. Purchased by Gloddfa Ganol