Better slate than ever

It’s not all trendy fashion magazines in picture frames, you know. Rhys from Clinc-R magazine sends me a link to some quite remarkable images from Caban, the in-house magazine of the Oakley and Vottie slate quarries in Wales, some of the largest in the world. The magazine continued until the early sixties – the quarries are still running, but probably not quite like this.

Caban also published a complete dictionary of local mining terms (PDF), with explanations that are no less fascinating as the photographs, such as “Cerddad bar – Common practice when two men walk on parallel rails grasping each others coats at the back.” and “Cerrig fel iau – Slates easy to split like liver.”

“Me old ma has the whole set!” Rhys says. Lucky lady.