Penarth

Moderate sized quarry with remains.***

site retains numerous buildings, including large dressing sheds typical of the district. The mill contains remnants of shafting, pulleys, and a motor room dated 190?. Remains of an open-air horizontal gang shot-saw survive with its carriage and concrete machine beds. A nearby adit has been blocked and dammed to hold water, possibly to supply the saws; unusual pipework outside suggests a gas-producer system. The weigh-house at the blocked drainage and rubbish adit still contains weighing gear.

The main incline is prominent, with its shallow drum house built snugly into the rock and enclosing the characteristic Denbigh-style horizontal sheaves. Much of the incline’s mechanism remains, including the remote-controlled crimp sprag and traces of the incline table. The incline once passed beneath the main road, now marked by a culvert; nearby are traces of the original Wharf Mill. Scattered around the site are artefacts including sand-saw blades; however, no physical evidence remains of water-power use on the quarry floor.

At the pit where underground workings meet the surface, there is a stockpile of small slates and ruined terraces with old dressing sheds and degraded finished product. Little survives of the once extensive multi-pitch incline system that reportedly used horizontal sheaves. Evidence exists of a small block-making operation using country rock; early twentieth-century material may have been shipped to Llanfair quarry for crushing. Quarry housing survives at road level, though the former row of cottages below the site has vanished completely.

Underground, the quarry contains three levels of tunnels, working what appear to be two veins. Rail survives in places along with an incline, winches, and at least one wagon.

Penarth began as a medium-sized terrace quarry, worked by hand in its early years. Development accelerated after the Llangollen & Corwen Railway opened in 1865, enabling closer underground working. A tramway incline connected the quarry to the railway, with Wharf Mill near the foot operating water-powered sand and circular saws. The workforce dropped from 150 men initially to just 10 by 1883, though output remained respectable at approximately 500 tons annually. The quarry shut in 1890 but reopened in 1896 with a new eastern sawing shed powered by a 12 horsepower Blackstone engine; its sand saws may have been sourced from Pentrefelin. In 1906, a rare reciprocating shot-saw was added, and the oil engine was replaced by a 40 horsepower Hornsby gas engine that also worked a short incline. Final closure came in 1932, when annual production was still around 1,000 tons.

There are about 4 collapsed adits, the main entrance now being through the quarry.