Croesor Slate Mine
Croesor Slate Mine
Altitude 500m
Entrance grid ref
Adit : SH 667456
No. of levels : 11?
No. of inclines : 1?
Personal experience? : Yes
Local area
Croesor is in the mountains just to the west of Blaenau Ffestiniog, famous for its slate quarries / mines. The mountain in which Croesor is situated also contains a number of other mines of comparable size, namely Wrysgan, Rhosydd, Pant Mawr, and numerous other scratchings, only noticeable by walking the hills.
About Croesor
Croesor initially seems to be a small mine, because access to the further reaches are so difficult / dangerous that you mentally write them off as impossible. However, with a little risky stuff, the mine is actually nearly as big as Rhosydd, and you can spend longer down there.
What's there
Croesor can only be accessed by squeezing through some bars to gain access to the entrance adit. The adit is quite short, and soon reaches the foot of an incline. To the left is a chamber, presumably a workshop, and on the right is an office / generator room. The incline goes down, but is filled with water, and it also continues up past the furnace to a vertical shaft which opens to daylight after 100m.
By the office is a tunnel leading to a flooded chamber, which can be swum across to reveal another flooded chamber. This can also be swum across to reveal ..... yes, another one. This one can be swum to reveal a final chamber. There's not much here of interest, although it can be described as 'character building'!.
As you go up the incline, there are access tunnels to the right and left. The ones to the left have been blocked by the partial collapse of the chamber, and the ones to the right drop many feet into the flooded chamber you can swim across. That seems to be it initally, however, at the top of the incline is a drop on the left of about 20 metres into a dry chamber. Abseiling into this is the start of an interesting if not rather dangerous little excursion, which is a story best told another day.
So then
Croesor is a very simple little poke about, no real danger, except for the bottom of the incline, where the floor is wooden at one point, and you only realise that after you've crossed over it!. Again there's not much to see, but it's worth a single visit.
Access is easy, no angry Welshmen like Rhosydd!.
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