Full Report for Listed Buildings
The list description is not intended to be a complete inventory of what is listed: it is principally intended to aid identification. By law, the definition of a listed building includes the entire building (i) and any structure or object that is fixed to the said building and ancillary to it and (ii) any other structure or object that forms part of the land and has done so since before 1 July 1948, and was within the curtilage of the building, and ancillary to it, on the date on which said building was first included in the list, or on 1 January 1969, whichever was later.
Summary Description
Reference Number
23689
Building Number
Grade
II
Status
Designated
Date of Designation
21/07/2000
Date of Amendment
21/07/2000
Name of Property
Tunnel Portal and Tunnel
Address
Location
Unitary Authority
Gwynedd
Community
Llanllyfni
Town
Locality
Nantlle
Easting
249846
Northing
353407
Street Side
Location
Located in the hillside to the north of Talysarn Hall.
Description
Broad Class
Industrial
Period
History
The Nantlle Railway Company was incorporated by Act of Parliament in 1825 and opened in 1828. It was promoted by a group of slate quarry owners in the Nantlle vale to improve the transport of their products to the port at Caernarfon, following the construction of similar narrow gauge railways from the Bethesda and Llanberis Quarries to Penrhyn and Port Dinorwic respectively. The tramway was of 3ft 6in (1.07m) gauge and operated by horses until much of it was converted to standard gauge and incorporated into the main national railway network in the later C19. A short section of the line above Talysarn remained as a horse-drawn tramway until 1963. The tunnel itself is a late C19 structure, built in the later C19 to allow waste from the Talysarn Quarry to be tipped above. As the tip encroached further the line was diverted to a more southerly route, immediately behind Talysarn Hall, and the west portal of the tunnel is no longer visible. This diversion had been made by 1889 when it appears on the Ordnance Survey map of that date.
Exterior
Eastern tunnel portal built of squared slate rubble. Semi-circular arch with slate voussoirs, above which are a string course and parapet.
Interior
Not inspected at time of survey.
Reason for designation
Included as a substantial structure on the Nantlle Railway, an important early horse-drawn tramway, the tunnel itself is particularly significant for the evidence it provides of the massive expansion of the Dorothea and Talysarn Slate Quarries during the C19.
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