An early hydro-power station serving Llechwedd Slate Quarry, still in use supplying the national grid, located at the former exchange yard between the quarry’s own railway systems and inclined plane and the main-line network. Adjacent structures include a weighbridge house, a crane, iron railway bridges and the remains of a loading wharf. The cast-iron piping has been replaced by a more modern pipe.

The power station is a rare survivor of a direct current generating station, and is constructed in an Edwardian industrial idiom. It is a single-storey building constructed of slate with a half-hipped slate roof; the historic turbines are by Gilbert Gilkes and Co of Kendal and operated 175kw DC Johnson and Philips generators at 385 rpm. These are preserved out of use and a modern set functions in their place. The switch gear is by General Electric with meters by Lionel Robinson and Co. of Thames Ditton. The eight-bay roof is supported by plain bolted king-post trusses; a 5 ton gantry crane survives.

Statement of Significance:

The Pant yr Afon hydro-power station is a rare example of an early twentieth-century hydroelectric power station, with most of its original machinery, a complete and functioning example of the early industrial use of water-power.

This site is part of the Slate Landscape of Northwest Wales World Heritage Site, Component Part 5: Ffestiniog: its slate mines and quarries, slate town and railway to Porthmadog. Inscribed July 2020

Sources: 

Louise Barker & Dr David Gwyn, March 2018. Slate Landscapes of North-West Wales World Heritage Bid Statements of Significance. (Unpublished Report: Project 401b for Gwynedd Archaeological Trust)

Hannah Genders Boyd, RCAHMW, January 2022 

Site Record

Pant-yr-Afon Hydro Electric Power Station;Maenofferen Powerhouse, Blaenau Ffestiniog