MRFS
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10 years ago
Can anyone provide a date for the incorporation of this body, please?

I'm currently reading an inspection report from Col. Mount which mentions the connection to the Festiniog, and how it was interlocked - giving a date for the end of the signalling at Tanygrisiau station (the Wrysgan connection was just within station limits). This inspection report mentions the 'New Wrysgan Slate Co'.

Did Wrysgan continuously produce?
Graigfawr
10 years ago
Do you mean the New Wrysgan Slate Quarries Ltd? If so, it was incorporated 1922: see TNA BT 31/27352/183271. This is the only company in the TNA catalogue with "New Wrysgan" in its title.

The shareholders voted for voluntary liquidation in October 1927 (see London Gazette 14 October 1927, p.6490) along with the New Delabole Slate Quarries Ltd, with which it seems to have been related. Winding up was completed by January 1928 (see LG 6 January 1928, p.182).
MRFS
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10 years ago
The only name I have is the New Wrysgan Slate Co.

Other data that I've managed to dig up suggests a liquidation on/during 1914, as the FR were discussing removing the telephone. XD97/3450 suggests that there was a fresh agreement for the siding accommodation at the bottom of the incline in 1923; 1928 saw Robert Evan issuing an edict that no braked wagons were to go up the Wrysgan incline and there is still correspondence on file from as late as 1940 about the traffic, so it seems that there was make as late as the early part of the war.

Did (as I asked in the OP) Wrysgan stay open, or was it closed between (say) 1914 and 1922? If it did close then that might explain the connection described as 'new' being inspected in 1926.

There were ground frames tendered for in 1893ish for Tunnel North and Wrysgan. There is a suspiciously older looking lever frame at LNW exchange..... 2+2 = 4. Might have moved into stock when Wrysgan shut, if it shut. However, it was inside Tanygrisiau's Up Disc and there is a ground frame drawn on the undated signalling diagram of TyG.
Graigfawr
10 years ago
"MRFS" wrote:


Did (as I asked in the OP) Wrysgan stay open, or was it closed between (say) 1914 and 1922? If it did close then that might explain the connection described as 'new' being inspected in 1926.



The governmental List of Quarries (triennial after the Great War) and the governmental annual List of Mines will provide manpower returns (divided into underground and surface in LoM) from which the degree of activity at the quarry can be gauged for each year.
MRFS
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10 years ago
Fair enough - doesn't actually answer the question.

All I'm after is a 'Yes' or 'No' about production.
Graigfawr
10 years ago
I have no special knowledge or focused interest in Wrysgan Quarry. I hold no information on this quarry.

In the absence of any other reply to your enquiry, I searched the TNA online catalogue and the LG online search facility to provide you with information.

The LoM and LoQ were suggested as being very likely to answer your query because, from past experience of using these publications, I have found them to be ideal for answering the sort of query which you have posed. Other sources that might answer your query would be reports in local newspapers, and the archives of the mineral landlords (if they survive and are in a public repository). The LoM and LoQ usually offer a faster (and often a more accurate) indication of whether any specific mine or quarry was operating and to what degree (output is usually proportional to workforce size).

This, I'm afraid, exhausts the information that I can find and the suggestions that I can make in respect of this query.

I wish you every success with your ongoing research.
MRFS
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10 years ago
"Graigfawr" wrote:

I wish you every success with your ongoing research.



..and I appreciate what you have dug up thus far: is there any comment in Alun John Richards' books about Wrysgan: I am 300 miles away from my slate books, so cannot even gather anecdotal evidence.

If Wrysgan shut, then there is a very good case for the connection to the FR to be reinspected in 1926 by Mount, as if it had closed during (say, randomly) 1914 and the connection was lifted then I can see a good case for it being replaced with more modern signalling.

If it were replaced at the same time as Tanygrisiau was resignalled then I would expect a comment from Mount about the new work at TyG as well as Coomoorthin and Wrysgan.
Graigfawr
10 years ago
Of A.J.Richards' books, I only have "Slate Quarrying in Wales" 1995 ed; I have checked it for mentions of Wrysgan in the period from 1914 on:

p.169 states "Wrysgan, which had re-opened in 1922 after nearly 20 years of idleness, was under new ownership and putting in new plant."

p.176 describes Wrysgan's problems in the early 1930s.

There are no further mentions of Wrysgan to the end of the text.
Alasdair Neill
10 years ago
The online copies of the List of Mines do not list Wrysgan in 1918, in 1923 New Wrysgan Slate Quarries Ltd "developing". I have full transcripts of the LofM for 1920 onwards but not here, may be a few weeks before I can check them.
MRFS
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10 years ago
TVM to both of you for the extra information - is there anything else about in when Wrysgan shut in 190x, please?

I can't find any other correlation to hand to back Boyd's assertion that the incline was lifted in 1913 - he also claims that there is some evidence of Wrysgan being operational in 1909 (ISTR that he or Jeremy Wilkinson (most probably Jeremy) went through the MJ to get these dates).

In that case I can see a possible timeline forming of Wrysgan reopening *before* the signalling was simplified at Tanygrisiau (I have a sketch which has full signalling and a groundframe at Wrysgan sometime during 1925/6).

Interesting, cheers. 🙂
Alasdair Neill
10 years ago
checking the Mineral Statistics, the output from Wrysgan declined from 1824 tons in 1908 to 90 tons in 1912 when it ceased, and abandonment plans were deposited the following year. According to Wilkinson there appears to be no mention in the Lists of Mines/Quarries from then until 1923. This suggests the quarry was closed 1913-1922.

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