23739

 

II  

Designated  

21/07/2000  

21/07/2000  

Barracks Building  

 

Gwynedd  

Llanllyfni  

Caernarfon  

Pen-yr-Orsedd  

250960  

353749  

 

Located to the south-west of the quarry offices on Level VI (Bonc yr Offis) of Pen-yr-Orsedd Slate Quarry.  

Industrial  

 

Barracks building, c1863. The quarry opened c1816 when it was worked by William Turner. In 1863 it was bought by W A Darbishire & Co., after which it underwent substantial modernisation, reflected in the use of both water and steam power. During the 1890s about 450 men worked here; it finally closed in 1997.  

Single-storey barracks building of shallow double-depth T-plan with central gabled projection; slightly lower block to south-west. Squared and coursed slate stone with remains of some probably later slate hanging; gable-ended roofs with polychromatic slate banding; chimneys of sawn slate blocks, some rendered. Main range has front of 1:2 windows with remains of C19 sashes; small shallow pyramidal-roofed entrance porch in angle with central gabled projection has C20 door.  

Much of the original lath and plasterwork survives.  

Listed as a good example of a barracks building at the remarkably well-preserved slate quarry of Pen-yr-Orsedd, part of a very extensive group of buildings serving the quarry and illustrative of its social organisation.