The slate quarries near Llanberis have become one of the most popular climbing spots in North Wales for climbers looking for sport routes, or immaculate slab climbing. The development started with the slate boom of the 1980s when the area became famous for immaculate slabs of purple slate with bold run-out routes. Most of these routes are still there in their original style and many have become classics and much sought-after trad ticks. More recently the area has been developed with a multitude of super sport routes from short single pitches to huge multi-pitch extravaganzas. This guide is a celebration of all of those styles of slate climbing. It is a comprehensive guidebook covering all the routes which is a little unusual for a Rockfax, although we have produced such books before.
Slates from quarries in Wales once went to roof the world. By the late nineteenth century as many as a third of all the roofing slates produced worldwide came from Wales, competing with quarries in France and the United States. This book traces the industry from its origins in the Roman period, its slow medieval development and then its massive expansion in the nineteenth century – as well as through its long drawn-out decline in the twentieth.
'North Wales Climbs' covers the best climbing from this huge and varied area. It covers all the major mountain crags from Llanberis Pass, to Cloggy; and from Ogwen to the Carneddau.
'It is Williams's Welshness that makes the examination of her mixed-race identity distinctive, but it is the humour, candour and facility of her style that make it exceptional . . . an engaging and perceptive voice describing an engrossing and particular personal story.' – Gary Younge 'In its exploration of geographical, racial and cultural dislocation, Sugar and Slate is in the finest tradition of work to have emerged from the black diaspora in recent times.' – The Guardian 'Within this review, I can only scrape the surface of the many dimensions of Williams' memoir, so I strongly encourage you to read this precious book for yourself, and find those parts of it which speak most to you.' – Sarah Tanburn, Nation.Cymru 'Warmly recommended to any curious minds, at 20 years old Sugar And Slate still speaks to us in these modern times, helping to ensure marginal voices remain heard.' – Buzz A mixed-race young woman, the daughter of a white Welsh-speaking mother and black father from Guyana, grows up in a small town on the coast of north Wales. From there she travels to Africa, the Caribbean and finally back to Wales. Sugar and Slate is a story of movement and dislocation in which there is a constant pull of to-ing and fro-ing, going away and coming back with always a sense of being 'half home'. This is both a personal memoir and a story that speaks to the wider experience of mixed-race Britons. It is a story of Welshness and a story of Wales and above all a story for those of us who look over our shoulder across the sea to some other place. It would have been so much easier if I had been able to say, 'I come from Africa,' then maybe added under my breath, 'the long way round.' Instead, the Africa thing hung about me like a Welsh Not, a heavy encumbrance on my soul; a Not-identity; an awkward reminder of what I was or what I wasn't. Once at a seminar, one of those occasions when the word Diaspora crops up too many times and where there aren't too many of us present, the only other Diaspora-person sought me out. His eyes caught mine in recognition of something I can't say I could name, yet I must have responded because later as we chatted over fizzy water and conference packs, he offered quite uninvited and with all the authority of an African: 'People like you? You gotta get digging and if you dig deep enough you're gonna find Africa.'
The Snowdonia Slate Trail is a new waymarked trail that runs for 83 miles through North Wales. It leads from the coast at Bangor into the heart of Snowdonia to make a circuit ending at Bethesda. The trail joins up villages with a choice of welcoming accommodation. The walking is varied, ranging from easy valleys to mountain passes, from wild moorland to river gorges.Highlights include the National Slate Museum of Wales, stunning views of Snowdon and nearby mountains, and abandoned slate villages high in the hills. The trail also passes the Penrhyn quarry with its impressive galleries of slate crossed by the longest, fastest zip-wire in Europe.This guidebook is in rucksack-friendly format and printed on rainproof paper. Lavishly illustrated with 95 colour photos, it contains large-scale mapping and all you need to plan and enjoy your holiday:14 pages with clear mapping of the route at 1: 40,000practical information about public transport and travelsection with inside knowledge on how best to climb Snowdondetailed route descriptions including where to find refreshments and accommodationbackground on the slate industry heritage, the 'Great Little Trains of Wales' and wildlife.
This book is about the stone used to build the castles of Edward I in North West Wales. It provides a description of the available geological resources and the building materials used in the construction of Caernarfon, Conwy, Harlech and Beaumaris Castles. It takes a broad view of this subject, placing the stone used in the castles in the context of both earlier and later buildings across the region of study, from the Neolithic up until the present day. The book will serve as a useful source book for geologists, archaeologists, architects, representatives of the natural stone industry, historians and cultural heritage management professionals specifically and for academic and non-academic communities, travellers and tourism industry operators in general.
