From the centre

Like many areas of Wales, the centre of the Little Orme bears the scars of extensive mineral  excavation. Elsewhere, the scars are those of coal mining or slate quarrying, but here it’s the limestone of the cliffs that’s gone, shipped between 1889 until 1931 to the Clyde and Argyll coast ports for use in blast furnaces and chemical works. 

I climb up the long, steep slope that once was the track for the cable way dropping stone down to the diminutive docks below. The track’s long gone, of course, but the incline certainly deserves its name of ‘cardiac hill’. But at the top, below the rough-hewn cliffs, stand the remains of the old winding gear, gigantic rusting cogs nestling centrally between the brutalist towers. 

It’s an unexpected place for industrial relics; green, a place for leisurely walks and watching birds and seals. Silent now, but for the wind and the loud squalls of fulmars nesting on the cliffs. Despite its ugliness, I can’t help comparing this to the beautiful Land Raiders monument at Aignish on Lewis (in extras - taken last September). Both memorials in their way to the harshness of the past. 


On a quarry path

On their knees, who are they
That come to work through the teeth of the wind?
Men tied to the bread of this rock
With their nails chiselled to it
Summer or Winter, the same yoke
Of stones on their shoulders
But they, on this celestial path
Bent, tripping to the peak
Of the mountain, they are the cornerstones
Of our walls – and us,
So far from the knife of the winds
Are the shavings of what they were.
Susan Walton


A translation of the following Welsh poem written by Myrddin ap Dafydd about the old granite quarries of Nant Gwrtheryn on the Llyn Peninsula. 

Ar lwybr chwarel

Ar eu pedwar, pwy ydynt
’ddaw i’w gwaith drwy ddannedd y gwynt?
Gwŷr caeth i fara’r graig hon
A’u gwinedd ynddi’n gynion,
Haf neu aeaf, yr un iau
O gerrig ar eu gwarrau.
Ond hwy, ar lwybr yr wybren,
Yn plygu, baglu i ben
Y mynydd, hwy yw meini
Conglau ein waliau – a ni,
Mor bell o gyllell y gwynt,
Yw’r naddion o’r hyn oeddynt. 


Thanks to Bobsblips for hosting.