Cribarth Limestone Quarries and Tramroads

Cadw's description

Summary description and reason for designation

The following provides a general description of the Scheduled Ancient Monument.

The monument comprises the remains of quarry workings dating from the industrial period. The quarries worked limestone and silica sand and were connected with the Swansea Canal by tramroad. The remains include quarry, tip, limekiln, boundary and tramroad features. There is a dense network of tramroads within the quarries, one unfinished tramroad of the 1820s provides some of the best evidence in Wales of the construction process of such features. The main period of activity at the quarries was connected with the provision of flux and silica firebricks for the boom in the anthracite iron industry of the upper Swansea Valley from 1837 to about 1860.

The monument is of national importance for its potential to enhance our knowledge of quarrying in the industrial period. The quarry may be expected to contain archaeological information in regard to chronology, mining techniques and functional detail. A quarry may be part of a larger cluster of industrial monuments and their importance can further enhanced by their group value.

The scheduled area comprises the remains described and areas around them within which related evidence may be expected to survive.