World Heritage Landscape Gwynedd.

[reohn2]

PWA
The slate slag heaps of North Wales have NOT been 'softened by time',and I'd need some convincing that the people who live next to such heaps are 'proud of them'.
I can't ever remember anyone being 'proud' of the slag heaps that surrounded the Wigan coal field sites,they were at best accepted as just 'being there' and was a relief for those who live near them when they were bulldozed flat and made productive a recratioal use of,I've no reason to believe the people of Notorth Wales feel any different.

Oldjohnw
No one,including me,has said anything abour pretending they never existed or making all trace disappear.
There are far better ways of remembering our past industrial heritage than allowing such colossal eyesores to remain blotting the beautiful landscape of North Wales the difference is it costs money.

[Hellhound]

I, too, am glad these industries have gone. But it would, I suggest, be wrong to pretend they never existed by making all trace disappear.

Sadly that has happened.Many of the mines and steel mills are now out of town retail parks.Granted some are recreational spaces with a little monument to their industrial past but in many cases you'd not know there was ever anything there.

[Oldjohnw]

I, too, am glad these industries have gone. But it would, I suggest, be wrong to pretend they never existed by making all trace disappear.

Sadly that has happened.Many of the mines and steel mills are now out of town retail parks.Granted some are recreational spaces with a little monument to their industrial past but in many cases you'd not know there was ever anything there.

I guess we can’t keep them all, or even bits of them all. But bits of some.

In an odd sort of way, you could argue that out of town retail parks are every bit as destructive of the environment. And equally eyesores. Their construction destroys habitat and their function is to perpetuate excessive consumption.

[pwa]

PWA
The slate slag heaps of North Wales have NOT been 'softened by time',and I'd need some convincing that the people who live next to such heaps are 'proud of them'.
I can't ever remember anyone being 'proud' of the slag heaps that surrounded the Wigan coal field sites,they were at best accepted as just 'being there' and was a relief for those who live near them when they were bulldozed flat and made productive a recratioal use of,I've no reason to believe the people of Notorth Wales feel any different.

Oldjohnw
No one,including me,has said anything abour pretending they never existed or making all trace disappear.
There are far better ways of remembering our past industrial heritage than allowing such colossal eyesores to remain blotting the beautiful landscape of North Wales the difference is it costs money.

I think there is a difference between coal and slate waste tips. The coal tips and dirty, mucky things that never really stabilise. But the slate waste is just scree, like you find naturally beneath natural cliffs. Slate workings are now often home to peregrine falcons and other wildlife.

Getting coal tips back to nature is difficult. I know because I have done it. I have worked on several in South Wales, and (just for a couple of days) at Pennington Flash. But slate workings get back to nature, slowly but surely, just like any natural landslide would. The biggest fresh slate scars I can think of are near Bethesda, and even there you can see that even without human help, nature is well on the way to turning apparently barren surfaces into woodland. Give it a couple of decades more and it will be visually and ecologically transformed.
https://www.google.com/maps/@53.1698872 ... 6?hl=en-GB
You can see that much of the site is still fresh and bare, but it won't stay that way. Nature will put vegetation on it. Slowly at first but with increasing pace as leaf matter builds up.

[reohn2]

I, too, am glad these industries have gone. But it would, I suggest, be wrong to pretend they never existed by making all trace disappear.

Sadly that has happened.Many of the mines and steel mills are now out of town retail parks.Granted some are recreational spaces with a little monument to their industrial past but in many cases you'd not know there was ever anything there.

I guess we can’t keep them all, or even bits of them all. But bits of some.

In an odd sort of way, you could argue that out of town retail parks are every bit as destructive of the environment. And equally eyesores. Their construction destroys habitat and their function is to perpetuate excessive consumption.

Hang on a minute,if retail parks,housing estates and country parks are being built on old industrial sites then good use is being made of brown field sites.
Whilst I agree about excessive consumption being bad,it doesn't necessarily mean because there a retail parks people will consume excessively.

[reohn2]

PWA
The slate slag heaps of North Wales have NOT been 'softened by time',and I'd need some convincing that the people who live next to such heaps are 'proud of them'.
I can't ever remember anyone being 'proud' of the slag heaps that surrounded the Wigan coal field sites,they were at best accepted as just 'being there' and was a relief for those who live near them when they were bulldozed flat and made productive a recratioal use of,I've no reason to believe the people of Notorth Wales feel any different.

Oldjohnw
No one,including me,has said anything abour pretending they never existed or making all trace disappear.
There are far better ways of remembering our past industrial heritage than allowing such colossal eyesores to remain blotting the beautiful landscape of North Wales the difference is it costs money.

I think there is a difference between coal and slate waste tips. The coal tips and dirty, mucky things that never really stabilise. But the slate waste is just scree, like you find naturally beneath natural cliffs. Slate workings are now often home to peregrine falcons and other wildlife.

Getting coal tips back to nature is difficult. I know because I have done it. I have worked on several in South Wales, and (just for a couple of days) at Pennington Flash. But slate workings get back to nature, slowly but surely, just like any natural landslide would. The biggest fresh slate scars I can think of are near Bethesda, and even there you can see that even without human help, nature is well on the way to turning apparently barren surfaces into woodland. Give it a couple of decades more and it will be visually and ecologically transformed.
https://www.google.com/maps/@53.1698872 ... 6?hl=en-GB
You can see that much of the site is still fresh and bare, but it won't stay that way. Nature will put vegetation on it. Slowly at first but with increasing pace as leaf matter builds up.

Pennington Flash,which is on my doorstep is a wildlife haven attracting coach trips of bird watchers from afar along with many,many local people visiting it on a regular basis for many different uses,running bird watching,the start and swim of the Ironman UK,a golf course,childrens play area and playing fields.
A much better place than when Bickshaw colliery was working

I disagree that the slate slag heaps of Wales return back to a natural landscape in any form,Bethesda and Llanberis are two of the biggest blots on North Wales' beautiful landscape and bare a testiment to that opinion.

[Oldjohnw]

Sadly that has happened.Many of the mines and steel mills are now out of town retail parks.Granted some are recreational spaces with a little monument to their industrial past but in many cases you'd not know there was ever anything there.

I guess we can’t keep them all, or even bits of them all. But bits of some.

In an odd sort of way, you could argue that out of town retail parks are every bit as destructive of the environment. And equally eyesores. Their construction destroys habitat and their function is to perpetuate excessive consumption.

Hang on a minute,if retail parks,housing estates and country parks are being built on old industrial sites then good use is being made of brown field sites.
Whilst I agree about excessive consumption being bad,it doesn't necessarily mean because there a retail parks people will consume excessively.

I never mentioned either housing or country parks. And I think we are at long last learning that retail parks are not a good retail model. Some are actually closing down. So new brownfield sites!

[reohn2]

I never mentioned either housing or country parks. And I think we are at long last learning that retail parks are not a good retail model. Some are actually closing down. So new brownfield sites!

OK,I take your point about housing and country parks,but I suspect you agree they're one of the plusses to renewal of industrial sites.
As for retail parks I agree they're have been,while they lasted,a shopping mainstay,until the internet stole their thunder and covid finished them off.

Whatever,all three beat slagheaps hands down,whether they be pit or slate slagheaps.

I'm all for industrial heritage centres so we don't forget industrial history,but people in certain areas of the country shouldn't be waking up to slagheaps out of their windows everyday.
As an open question to the forum,how many people love slagheaps so much they'de like to live opposite one?

[Ben@Forest]

OK,I take your point about housing and country parks,but I suspect you agree they're one of the plusses to renewal of industrial sites.
As for retail parks I agree they're have been,while they lasted,a shopping mainstay,until the internet stole their thunder and covid finished them off.

Whatever,all three beat slagheaps hands down,whether they be pit or slate slagheaps.

I'm all for industrial heritage centres so we don't forget industrial history,but people in certain areas of the country shouldn't be waking up to slagheaps out of their windows everyday.
As an open question to the forum,how many people love slagheaps so much they'de like to live opposite one?

I reckon that 5% of rural houses in the North Pennines are within sight of spoil heaps (is that the same as slag heaps?) . They are everywhere and of course many older houses are close to where mining for lead (and silver and zinc and fluorspar) were, so they are bound to be close. And plenty of those houses are sought after when they come onto the market.

[Mike Sales]

I used to ride a road, at the back of Bethesda, which skirted the bottom of a huge heap of spoil from Penrhyn Quarry.
I always noticed that the air was colder there.
My theory is that the air within the tip was cooled by contact with the rock, and being denser, it trickled out at the bottom.
Does this make sense?
Unlike a slag heap or a scree slope, the slate tips are made up of sizeable chunks, not sealed against the air.

[pwa]

https://www.google.com/maps/@54.4342816 ... 0?hl=en-GB

Look at this image of a spoil tip. Except it is a 100% natural one at Wastwater, where nature has made slopes that look remarkably similar to the spoil at Bethesda. Over time the Bethesda spoil will acquire willow and birch which will make it easier on the eye and provide a habitat for wildlife which may be richer than sheep pasture nearby. But the dramatic excavations are and will remain features of interest for visitors. The alternative would be to plaster over the scars with soil (as if you find find enough to do that) and create yet another unremarkable repair job that never looks quite right.

[Tangled Metal]

Slate mining doesn't create slag heaps they're spoil heaps. They're made of broken slates of no commercial value as such just broken stones. In the case of North Wales you have one of the most significant mining areas of the UK. It was the area that roofed the world. How many very special buildings, houses, factories, churches, parliaments, courts got Welsh slate around the world. What you see as slag (correctly spoil) heaps I see as part of a significant, former industrial landscape that's a record of the ingenuity, technology and creativity in solving problems. There's a lot to see and take on if you're able to see past what i assume you see only as destruction.

As to Avebury and other henges and stone circles, what exactly is it that you think is so,significant? You say it's a record of religion. Or are they astronomical markers? Do we really know for sure? You see value because they're a religious site? A religion we don't know anything about for certain and without any practitioners? Doesn't that just make them a load of old stones left by a peoples from a long time ago? Sure there's ingenuity getting them there but to modern world there's no certainties over what the significance to the builders. I appreciate them but I also see them as part of human development.

Slate mining is another part. To me mining history is more interesting. There's real, human stories there that have been recorded. Tragedy and success. Life and death too. Even cultural significance. Old mining towns still have traditions from the mining times despite no mines being in operation for quite some time.

Everywhere there's been mining in recent history there's been remnants of mining but also traditions indeed cultural history too. Same with mill towns and other industrial communities. To write them off because you don't like what's left in the archaeological record seems to me like pitting one type of our human history against another purely because of personal aesthetics.

Personally I've been down old lead mines in North Yorkshire that were opened up hundreds of years ago. I've seen evidence of families hand drilling left in the rock. Behind those remnants there's written historical records. Father working with elder son hitting the drill with sledge hammers in confined spaces. With younger sons learning the trade by quarter turning the drill bit between each strike. Get that wrong and the kid got hit and lost hands or probably died. Human stories, human histories.

Then the rock removed from Coniston copper mines if ore containing often got wheeled out in carts by another family member to their women who pre sorted the ore out from the waste, which then earns them money. It's fascinating. History!

Goldscope mine, AIUI German miners brought in by the monarch to extract the gold. Actually a very good deposit at the time. Made a lot for the king.

Before now I've mentioned tales of graphite mined up near Keswick area. There's a lot more with that than spoil heaps. Stories of smuggling, foreign agents, material that was considered strategically important and a multitude of uses. Hidden smuggler hideouts, infamous smugglers, smuggling routes, etc. Graphite and illicit spirits all part of smuggling history in the lakes.

Of course not everyone appreciates mining history. I don't really like mill history or historic houses. Or agricultural history. I don't write off agricultural history because they've cut down the woods that once dominated the land. Personally I find ancient woodland more interesting than farmland. I think it would be wrong to write off a historical field system because I prefer woodland though.

[Tangled Metal]

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/201 ... wales-1957

For you guardian readers, a true slag heap not spoil tip the locals want to keep.

[Tangled Metal]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoil_tip

Terminology of waste deposits.

Spoil tip
Slag heap
tailings

[Jdsk]

Slag is used as a specific term for the byproduct of smelting.

But it's also used for the waste from coal mining and sorting. I'm not sure if that use derives from slack. The OED has first recorded use in this sense in 1695.

And slag heap is a very common local name for mounds of the stuff. Or of any waste.

Jonathan