Nantlle Railway and Old Talysarn

Cadw's description

Summary description and reason for designation

The relict remains of the Nantlle Railway comprise a well preserved formation running E-W along the floor of the valley between the villages of Nantlle and Talysarn, Penygroes. It was built to connect the numerous pit workings of Dyffryn Nantlle and to transport slate product from these quarries to the Slate Quay in Caernarfon for international export.

Constructed in 1828, the Nantlle Railway was the first public railway to serve the slate industry; the Penrhyn Quarry Railroad of 1801 (CN415) and the Dinorwig Quarry Railway of 1824 being privately owned ventures serving only their respective quarries. A 3’ 6” gauge railway, it was designed as a plateway, but built, on the advice of Robert Stephenson (brother of George Stephenson), as an edge railway using wrought-iron fishbelly rails on stone blocks. Horse-drawn throughout its history, it remained in operation for slate transportation as well as carrying goods and passengers locally until November 1963.

The circuitous route of the railway was partly influenced by a number of pre-existing topographic features, buildings and structures and partly as a product of ad hoc re-routing to accommodate expanding quarrying, tipping and additional connections as other quarries developed and the system expanded. Immediately adjacent to the railway are numerous relict structures; some of the buildings are associated with pre-industrial settlement at Talysarn while others were ancillary to the operation of the railway or adjacent quarries. While the functional relationships between the railway and these structures is not always clear, the physical proximity is often striking.

Today the railway survives as a well preserved formation 1.3km in length with 4 distinct groups of roofless buildings adjacent to it. Area A, the eastern section, runs between the base of an inclined plane from Pen yr Orsedd quarry and extends for c.600m until it is lost to the W of Pont Robat Griffith. Area B extends from the bridge abutments of Cloddfa’r Lôn slate quarry (CN302) for c.800m to the west to the junction with the former Nantlle Road.

Area A – Pen yr Orsedd quarry to Pont Robat Griffith. The east end of Area A includes the relict remains of a marshalling yard, stables, weighbridge house and office at the foot of the inclines from Pen yr Orsedd slate quarry. From here, one route is well preserved and two others are partly buried beneath slate waste. These formations are presumed to have been built to accommodate future ambitions that were never realised, either for quarry expansion at Twll Mawr or additional tipping from Pen y Bryn Quarry. Redundant lines are marked on the Ordnance Survey 1st edition map (1889), the southern route having been most recently in use. This route is supported on a substantial slate-waste embankment to the north and west of Nantlle Terrace.

From the junction with Pen y Bryn quarry the formation is well preserved with occasional sleepers surviving in situ and pieces of fish-belly rail evident; mostly reused in nearby fences. The railway formation continues to the south of Twll Mawr and Twll Balast for a further c.200m until it reaches Pont Robat Griffith. This bridge carried the Nantlle Railway over the former turnpike and was named after Robat (Robert) Griffith, believed to have been a haulage contractor on the Nantlle Railway. The current structure was a replacement for an earlier structure; the concrete abutments survive but the steel girders, designed and fabricated at Crewe works, have been removed. The date April 1938 is recorded on both abutments, one in mosaic, one carved in concrete. To the W of the bridge the formation is just visible for a further c.40m until it reaches an archaeologically sterile area re-profiled in the 20th century.

Area B – Cloddfa’r Lôn slate quarry to the former Nantlle Road. The railway formation is visible as a cutting where it connects with Cloddfa’r Lôn slate quarry (CN302). A fork in the formation here connected with Dorothea quarry (CN199) and then onwards towards Gallt y Fedw but this section was quarried away from 1872 when the railway was diverted north. The northern route comprises an impressive rock-cut cutting c.6m deep that makes use of a substantial stone bridge with brick arch, built to carry the former turnpike over the railway. The cutting includes in situ track bed and a well-built slate-slab capped drain along the east flank.

At Talysarn Uchaf a small group of buildings is clustered around sidings to Gallt y Fedw incline and is surrounded to the north by the tips of Gallt y Fedw Quarry. The roofless remains of Tal y Sarn Farmhouse and its adjacent outbuildings date to the 17th or 18th century while the relict remains of Tal y Sarn Uchaf cottages were built during the 1860s, in part to house men working at Dorothea Quarry but also to accommodate men and women operating slate trains on the Nantlle Railway.

The railway continues as a well-defined formation flanked on both sides by c.2m high masonry walling. 100m west is the eastern portal of a wide, oval-section, stone-arched tunnel (Listed Building reference 23689) that carried the railway prior to the expansion of Talysarn slate quarry. The portal was illustrated on a map of 1866 when it was clearly still in use, however it had become redundant by the time of production of the Ordnance Survey 1st edition map (1889) when a realignment took the railway further south, immediately adjacent to Plas Talysarn which forms the boundary of the railway. Plas Talysarn is an 18th century Georgian hall comprising a three storey main house with formal gardens, a large stable block, kitchen garden and outbuildings. A number of other buildings of uncertain function developed around the hall and alongside the railway during late 19th / early 20th century. One building, known locally as the Chapel retains an impressive architectural façade and distinctive window openings. All of the buildings are roofless and survive in a much overgrown relict state.

An impressive masonry causeway – in parts more than 4m high – carries the final 150m section at the west end of the Nantlle Railway. The causeway retains a short slate-slab bridge as well as an underpass to provide access to adjacent domestic buildings. These buildings predate the railway and include a dwelling, a building thought to act as a gatehouse to Plas Talysarn and a pump engine building associated with Talysarn quarry. Access to the underground drainage system for Talysarn quarry is also immediately north of the railway where a waterwheel pit was buried when the railway was diverted.

The monument is of national importance as the well-preserved relict remains of the Nantlle Railway, with potential to enhance our understanding of the slate quarrying industry, specifically the evolution of early slate transport systems and the transition from a traditional agricultural economy to an industrial society. It retains significant archaeological potential, with a strong probability of the presence of associated archaeological features and deposits. The formation and all of the adjacent buildings and structures may be expected to contain archaeological information within their fabric concerning function, chronology and phasing.

The scheduled area includes the remains described and an area around them in which further archaeological evidence might be expected to survive. Area A is a sinuous irregular linear on average 5m in width and c.600m NE-SW between NGR 250800, 353600 and 250360, 353235. Area A includes a group of buildings centred on NGR 250775, 353595 and a diversion at NGR 250700, 353490. Area B is an irregular linear measuring c.800m E-W by c.5m transversely between NGR 250265, 353290 and 249565, 353230. Area B includes 3 groups of buildings and associated structures at NGR 250000, 353430, NGR 249280, 353370 and NGR 249625, 353250.