The Abercorris quarry was a slate quarry

Slate industry

The slate industry is the industry related to the extraction and processing of slate. Slate is either quarried from a slate quarry or reached by tunneling in a slate mine. Common uses for slate include as a roofing material, a flooring material, gravestones and memorial tablets, and for electrical...

 worked between the 1860s and the early 1950s. It was located at Corris Uchaf

Corris Uchaf

Corris Uchaf , locally known as Top Corris, is a village lying in the south of the Snowdonia National Park in Gwynedd, Wales. The name is believed to be derived from the English word "quarries", and the extensive slate quarries that surround the village are its most prominent historical feature.The...

 about 5 miles north of Machynlleth

Machynlleth

Machynlleth is a market town in Powys, Wales. It is in the Dyfi Valley at the intersection of the A487 and the A489 roads.Machynlleth was the seat of Owain Glyndŵr's Welsh Parliament in 1404, and as such claims to be the "ancient capital of Wales". However, it has never held any official...

, in Gwynedd

Gwynedd

Gwynedd is a county in north-west Wales, named after the old Kingdom of Gwynedd. Although the second biggest in terms of geographical area, it is also one of the most sparsely populated...

, north-west Wales

Wales

Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

. The quarry was connected to the Corris Railway

Corris Railway

The Corris Railway is a narrow gauge preserved railway based in Corris on the border between Merionethshire and Montgomeryshire in Mid-Wales....

 which carried its products to the Cambrian Railways

Cambrian Railways

Cambrian Railways owned of track over a large area of mid-Wales. The system was an amalgamation of a number of railways that were incorporated in 1864, 1865 and 1904...

 at Machynlleth for distribution.

History

The land occupied by the Abercorris quarry was leased to Thomas Green of London in 1863 who began quarrying operations, although the site was probably worked on a small scale before this date. In 1874 amidst a boom in demand for slate, the Cwmodyn Slate & Slab Quarry Company was formed, but demand slumped soon after and the company was sold at auction in 1878. Its new owner, J.W. Orchard began operations again by 1880 but this operation also failed and the quarry was closed by 1888.

Abercorris reopened in 1889, employing 40 men but again failed and was taken over in 1893 by W. John Lewis and Arthur T. Carr. This operation continued with limited success through to 1914 when it closed at the outbreak of the First World War. Following the war the quarry was reopened in 1920 under the ownership of T.O. Williams and C. Humphries. By 1928 this latest attempt had been wound up.

There was another small scale attempt to work Abercorris in the mid-1930s, and it was sporadically worked by the owners of Braichgoch

Braichgoch Slate Mine

Braichgoch Slate Mine was a large slate mine located in Corris Uchaf, north Wales. It was worked continuously from 1787 until closure in 1970, apart from a hiatus in the 1900s...

quarry in the early 1950s, but this was the last time that slate was quarried as a commercial venture.