Frame to Grain

Category: Extraction

  • Old Vein

    Old Vein

    The things that most interest me as a photographer are the places where our demand for things, for energy, and for raw materials leave their scars on the world we live in. Nowhere is this more viscerally evident than in the abandoned slate quarries of Eryri in North Wales.

    These images come from three slate quarries: Cwmorthin, Conglog and Gorseddau, walked over long weekend in early May. I went looking for what’s left once the thing the land was valued for has been taken out of it. I wanted to see what a hundred and fifty years of abandonment does to places that once resonated with the throng of industry, the stone used to build the barracks, mills, chimneys, and walls slowly returning back to the mountain from which it came.

    • View through a ruined doorway at Cwmorthin Quarry, framing a still lake and mountain beyond.
      Cwmorthin Quarry
    • The ruined Ynys y Pandy slate mill at dawn, built to serve Gorseddau Quarry, its gable end and arched windows silhouetted against the sky.
      Ynys y Pandy Slate Mill
    • A row of roofless slate-built compartments at Cwmorthin Quarry, receding into the distance with a mountain behind.
      Cwmorthin Quarry barracks
    • Tall, tapered slate chimney stumps standing alone in rough grass at Cwmorthin Quarry.
      Cwmorthin Quarry stables
    • A blank, weathered sign with peeling paint standing in open moorland at Conglog Quarry, its message long gone.
      Conglog Quarry – warning sign
    • A path cutting through mounds of broken slate waste toward a ruined building at Conglog Quarry.
      Conglog Quarry
    • A line of sheep walking along a muddy track past a ruin at Gorseddau Quarry, hills rising behind.
      The approach to Gorseddau Quarry
    • A ruined building at Cwmorthin Quarry with a surviving chimney and an empty window, set against a hillside of slate waste.
      Ruins at Cwmorthin Quarry
    • A vertical quarry face of cut slate at Gorseddau, its terraced ledges and rubble showing where the rock was worked away.
      Gorseddau Quarry face
    • A wide view over the old Cwmorthin quarry workings, with the village of Tanygrisiau visible in the valley below.
      View towards Cwmorthin quarry workings and the village of Tanygrisiau
    • A weathered stone retaining wall holds back the slate waste at Gorseddau Quarry, with the valley falling away beyond it.
      Retaining wall at Gorseddau Quarry