National Slate Museum

National Slate Museum

The National Slate Museum is part of the National Museums Wales and forms a key piece of Europe’s industrial heritage. For over two thousand years, slate has shaped the Welsh landscape and history. At the foot of towering slate quarries, the museum is housed in 19th-century Victorian workshops that once served and maintained the massive Dinorwic Slate Quarry above. They provided all the repair and maintenance work needed by the quarry, and at their peak employed over 3,000 craftsmen. By observing and experiencing the hard lives of the slate workers and their surrounding communities, the Slate Museum offers you a unique opportunity to understand the lives of slate workers and their families.

Inside the National Slate Museum, multimedia documentaries such as “The Man Who Stole a Mountain” are shown, depicting the lives and working conditions of local quarrymen. In addition, visitors can watch slate splitting demonstrations performed daily by former quarry workers, and see the largest working waterwheel in Britain — the largest of its kind on the British mainland. Explore reconstructed quarrymen’s cottages — rebuilt and decorated with stone by the museum — which showcase key events in the history of the slate industry. Step into the workshops or the sooty workers' barracks to travel back in time, or ride the steam train or quarry tramway, both over 100 years old and once used to transport quarried rock, now the pride of the museum.

Welsh Slate Museum

Reason to visit: A museum where you can see Britain’s largest working waterwheel

Continent where the attraction is located: Europe【Europe】

Country/Region where the attraction is located: Britain[Britain]

Province/State where the attraction is located: Gwynedd County [Gwynedd County]