For more than 200 years, miners extracted slate from Mount Snowdon, much of the work done by candlelight. In the process, they created a maze of tunnels. "It goes miles that way, and it goes miles ...

For four years the hills of Manod, near the slate mining town of Blaenau Ffestiniog, became the hidden underground home for nearly 2,000 of the world's greatest artistic masterpieces. The ...

slate accounted for half of north Wales' income - and it even rivalled the scale of coal mining in the south. Though as soon as they had arrived, the good times were about to peter out.

Not only does it hold a history of the slate mining and the men and ponies participating in this Lake District industry and the landscape there, it also holds a part of our building history.

At its peak during the second half of the 19th century, the slate mining industry dominated the economy in North Wales, employing almost 17000 men at quarries dotted around the country including the ...