The history of the Penmaenmawr quarries
Submitted by PaulM on Saturday, 15 May 2004 Page Views: 12771
Environment
But the reason the mountain had survived erosion for millions of years was that it consisted of the hardest granite in the British Empire.
At the start of the 20th Century, granite was in demand across Europe, where cities, docks, roads and railways were rapidly expanding.
In a few decades, quarrymen reduced Penmaenmawr from a majestic mountain to a stump just under 1,000ft high.
In the process, they eradicated all traces of one of Wales' best-preserved prehistoric fortified villages.
The tale is the mirror image of the 1995 film The Englishman who went up a Hill but Came Down a Mountain, filmed in Powys and referring to Garth hill, above Taffs Well.
In the film, villagers carried materials to the top of the hill to make it 1,000ft high, forcing the English surveyor, played by Hugh Grant, to classify it officially as a mountain.
But the true story of Penmaenmawr - which means Great Stone Head - involved reducing a magnificent mountain to a hill. As the transformation occurred in the 20th Century, the difference can be verified by comparing old and new photographs and maps.
Alwyn Evans, the author of the new book on Penmaenmawr, said the entire prehistoric village had vanished, along with more than 500 feet of the summit.
"The really serious damage started in 1900, when machinery really got a grip.
"The stone went to the north-west of England and to the Continent. When I was a boy, Scandinavian ships used to come in to carry stone away," said Mr Evans, 65.
"The roads in Manchester were made from the old Penmaenmawr setts. Places like Hook of Holland and the Belgian coastal towns used Penmaenmawr granite."
Quarrying continued to diminish the mountain even after concrete came into widespread use. Penmaenmawr stone provided the foundations for many airfields built in and between the world wars, and was mixed with concrete to provide the surfaces, said Mr Evans, a retired Scots Dragoon Guards soldier.
His father and both of his uncles worked in the local quarries.
In his book, Mr Evans says, "The developing quarry became a honey pot, attracting labour from within and outside Wales. Shortly before the First World War, 1,082 men tore 517,000 tons of stone from the two quarries, Graiglwyd and Penmaen."
Quarrying continues today, but a little further inland. Now a workforce of about 40 produces more than 900,000 tons from Penmaen quarry alone, according to Mr Evans.
His book concentrates on piecing together the history of prehistoric settlement on Penmaenmawr, which had obvious strategic benefits with its commanding views over the Menai Strait to Anglesey and along the mainland coast.
He said the mountaintop would have been littered with loose rocks, an ideal source of building materials, when the first settlers arrived.
The remains were damaged in recent centuries, when a succession of laws about enclosure of land created a demand for stone to build walls around fields.
But sketches, made by an historian in 1877 and reproduced in the new book, show a clear network of roadways and defensive walls, with the foundations of scores of buildings.
The archaeological importance of the site was widely accepted by 1900, but economic interests came first.
"The quarry people had said, 'Maybe we can keep a lookout for old remains'. This was ridiculous.
"It would be a non-starter because of the conditions under which the men were working, although the men might have wanted to look," said Mr Evans, who still lives in the area.
Populating the Past: Penmaenmawr's Mysterious Beginnings, by Alwyn S Evans, is published by Gwasg Carreg Gwalch at £7.
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