Engine Punk

Nature has now reclaimed this slate quarry At the Lanlivery Show last year, I bought a book entitled Steam Engines and Waterwheels and this mentioned reports in the Model Engineer during the fifties of a surviving Cornish beam engine in the Dorothea Quarry near Nantlle, in Carnavonshire. From further research on the net, I learned that the old engine was still there and had been restored in the seventies but had fallen on hard times since then, as its location was away from the traditional tourist routes and access was poor. Red rag to a bull this was - charge! Dorothea Quarry is these days a well known diving attraction - although not for me as I'm far from being amphibious . In fact it was when the electric pumping engines were turned off in 1970 that the quarry became flooded. Since 1951, electric pumps unwatered the workings, which went down over a 100 metres, but the old steam engine was kept as a back up and last worked in 1956. At one stage the area was contained ...