Welsh Journals

SLATE WORKING IN NORTH CARDIGANSHIRE WITH PARTICULAR REFERENCE TO CWMERAU Lying between the great slate quarries of north Wales and the lesser but still important ones of Pembrokeshire and Carmarthenshire, Cardigan- shire had very few slate workings since it was not blessed with deposits of good slate. There were a few quarries which produced a sort of coarse slate used for infilling and road foundations, two which may have produced some better-quality slate products (namely Tyn-y-garth and Cwmrhaeadr), but only one achieved any prolonged commercial develop- ment, namely that at Cwmerau. The three last-mentioned works were all in the parish of Ysgubor-y-coed in north Cardiganshire. It is believed that the history of these works is little known. It is set out briefly below. Quarrying at Tyn-y-garth seems to have started in the mid-1860s. In April 1870 the Tyn-y-garth Quarry Company Ltd. was formed, its subscribers being from the Birmingham area. It appears from an agreement filed among the company's papers4 that Edward Wynne Thomas of Oswestry leased from the Revd. Lewis Charles Davies of Ynys-hir, from December 1865, 'beds or quarries of slate, slab and other like substances on lands known by names of Newdd Llwyd, Bwlch Enion, and Tyn-y-garth in the parish of Llancynfelin in the county of Cardigan' for 19 years at a royalty of one-twelfth, reducable to one-fifteenth on the payment of £ 100. It should be noted that the parish concerned was really Ysgubor-y-coed, although near the border with Llangynfelyn; and the roadway by which they are approached is mostly in Llangynfelyn. By the time the company was formed 'the Vendor had expended a considerable sum of money'. The company had a nominal capital of £ 10,000 divided into 20 shares only. Thirteen shares were issued in the first instance and the four directors were Josiah Mason and William Fothergill Batho, steel pen manufacturers of Erdington, and James Gibbs Blake and Edward Wynne Thomas junior, doctors in Birmingham. Charles A. Harrison was secretary. Mason, of course, was one of Birmingham's leading citizens, and founder of what became the University of Birmingham. By August 1870 only 12 shares were held and there had been a call of £ 150 on each, with another call of £ 250 on seven shares before May 1871. But the company was floundering and in August 1872 a special resolution 'that the Company be wound up voluntarily' was carried. In June 1872 the company was wound up and the property disposed of. Our next references to this quarry is in the Mining Journal in 1883, where it is stated that just beyond Furnace a mile up the valley