Blaenau Ffestiniog - UK

Blaenau Ffestiniog in Wales was once a slate mining centre in historic Merionethshire. It reached a population of 12,000 at the peak development of the slate industry, but fell with the decline in demand for slate. It now relies much on tourists, drawn for instance to the Ffestiniog Railway and Llechwedd Slate Caverns. 

The mines and quarries, ‘city of slates’ and Railway to Porthmadog, are classified as UNESCO WHS, on the list under the name of  The Slate Landscape of Northwest Wales since last year.

This is a new UNESCO site in my collection, thanks to Adam.

© Dave Newbould

The Slate Landscape of Northwest Wales illustrates the transformation that industrial slate quarrying and mining brought about in the traditional rural environment of the mountains and valleys of the Snowdon massif. The territory, extending from mountain-top to sea-coast, presented opportunities and constraints that were used and challenged by the large-scale industrial processes undertaken by landowners and capital investors, which reshaped the agricultural landscape into an industrial centre for slate production during the Industrial Revolution (1780-1914). The serial property comprises six components each encompassing relict quarries and mines, archaeological sites related to slate industrial processing, historical settlements, both living and relict, historic gardens and grand country houses, ports, harbours and quays, and railway and road systems illustrating the functional and social linkages of the relict slate industrial landscape. The property was internationally significant not only for the export of slates, but also for the export of technology and skilled workers from the 1780s to the early 20th century. It played a leading role in the field and constituted a model for other slate quarries in different parts of the world. It offers an important and remarkable example of interchange of materials, technology and human values. - in: https://whc.unesco.org