Life immortalised in Slate drawings
Each morning Kate Griffiths hitched a lift in an empty slate wagon up a 2,000ft mountain before walking three miles down into the village school she ran. To get back home, she scaled another mountain before hurtling down quarry inclines on a rudimentary device likened to a “handmade skateboard”.
It was a dangerous business: several quarry men workers died using the infamous “ceir gwyllt” (wild cars). These were 2ft wooden planks with flanged wheels and a brake ridden by one person at speeds of up to 50mph.
Kate, from Blaenau Ffestiniog, remains the only woman recorded ever to have used a car gwyllt. Technically illegal, they were invented around 1870 by Edward Ellis, blacksmith at nearby Graig Ddu Quarry, to get workers home quicker.
When the hooter sounded for the end of work at 4pm, there was a rush downhill to catch the bus from Bethania to surrounding villages. Using ceir gwyllt, the men – and Kate – could descend 1,000ft in around eight minutes.
Owing to its unique lay-out, Graig Ddu was the only quarry where the ‘wild cars’ were ever used. Kate took advantage of the bone-ratting transport to ease her arduous daily commute up to Maenofferen Quarry and over to her remote quarry school at Rhiwbach quarry. The return route differed so that she could take the quicker – and wilder – route back down.
She instigated the school in 1909 and than ran it herself, teaching 23 children from quarry families. In winter, when the weather was too wet or snowy, she was sometimes forced to stay overnight in the village, initially at the school building until she found local lodgings.
To commemorate this remarkable woman, and to celebrate the ingenuity of Blaenau’s mining industry, a large slate and brass mural has been installed on the gable end of a High Street building in the town. It shows the schoolmistress wearing a hat and clutching a book as she descends on a car gwyllt alongside another quarryman.
Rhiwbach schoolmistress Kate Griffiths takes centrestage in the mural (Image: Cyngor Gwynedd)
The public artwork, commissioned by Cyngor Gwynedd, is one of several projects telling the story of the slate industry in northwest Wales, now an UNESCO World Heritage Site. Cllr Medwyn Hughes, Cyngor Gwynedd ’s cabinet member for economy and the community, said: “One of the main aims of our world heritage site is to remember and celebrate our contribution in roofing the world.
“I am delighted with this new work on the Beatons building – it’s not only a portrait of the area, it’s also a celebration of Welsh culture and the importance of the Welsh language. Over the coming months we will be seeing new and very diverse pieces of art being installed across some of the towns and villages within the slate landscape.”
Designing and installing the mural were Sam Buckley and Kaz Bentham of Blaenau-based Original Roofing (Image: Cyngor Gwynedd)
The eye-catching mural was created by Blaenau-based Original Roofing using slate with different colours and textures. As well as the car gwyllt, it depicts the slate tips and the Moelwyn mountains. Musical notes, inlaid with brass, represent the area’s brass bands and its eisteddfodau.
Company director Sam Buckley the artwork was “quite a challenge”. Fellow director Kaz Bentham added: “Ordering some of the materials was costly. But the brass work, for example, enabled us to convey many prominent and important aspects of the town’s story.”
Future slate landscape installations will be seen in Porthmadog, Penygroes, Bethesda and Llanberis. A related work will also be commissioned for Tywyn. They are funded by the UK Government through the Shared Prosperity Fund and Cyngor Gwynedd’s ‘Llewyrch o’r Llechi’ cultural investment programme.
Source: NorthWalesLive
Autor: Andrew Forgrave
Photos: Cyngor Gwynedd