(Photos are for reference rather than artistic value ;))
I have wanted to visit here for a while and finally got round to going today. Since my brother is home from Uni for the weekend, I decided to take him with me.
The excitement started less than a mile from home, when we found a silver Saxo, upside down, suspended by a tree over a lake and a soggy chav trying to climb out of the water. We threw him a rope, pulled him out, and waited for the boys in blue to arrive before getting going again.
The depot is really easy to find. Heading towards Llanberis form Cwm Y Glo direction, the depot is just on the right hand side of the road, opposite the DMM place. But, the gates are about 10ft high and there’s no way you could get in that way without getting caught/ hurt. A little further down the road is Glyn Rhonwy Ind Est. Turn here and then immediately right (or you’ll end up in the Siemmens factory sort of thing), there are gates across the road, and this is as far as you can go by car. We left the pickup here and continued on foot. It turns out the estate hasn’t been built yet. There are roads, pavement and street lights, but no buildings.
The fence surrounding the depot is about 6ft tall with 3 rows of barbed wire on top:
We thought we’d have to dig under the fence, but found a bit with no barbed wire and opted to climb over it. Had we walked 10 yards further we would have found a hole in the fence that is plenty big enough to crawl through and a open gate a little further along again....
Getting down to the depot is a bit tricky, because it’s all waste slate and scree, so very slippery.
In the far end (nearest the main road), there are two tunnels. One tunnel goes out to the road, and the other goes underground. The underground tunnel has been filled with stone, and someone has been very busy digging through it, to no avail. God only knows how thick the wall of stone is:
Here’s the tunnel out to the main road:
There’s not very much to see in the open part of the depot. The doors through to the loading station and the stairs to the second level have been blocked with 3mm steel sheeting. There is a door in the sheet, but there’s a hefty padlock on it and it’s not very accessible:
You can see someone has tried to burn the first door ad lever the second open with stones (they haven’t done a bad job with the stones actually. I bet you could get it open with a big crowbar).
Here’s a photo I took through the hole in the second door (the hole is about a foot square). To the right of the photo is where the doorway through to the platform for loading the trains is, and the staircase is right at the back:
To be continued...
Here are the two tunnels from the top. The smaller of the two goes underground and the larger on is about 30 yards long and goes out to the main road. The rails are under all that crap that has been tipped in there!
Brick work on the second floor looks recent-ish. Bricks between the divider walls are a bit pointless since the front is open (as you can see in the other photos)
Once out of the depot we had a look for holes in other fences. The first fenced off bit was a massive open cast quarry with no sign of a way to the bottom, so we left that and carried on to the next. The next one looked more promising, with new fences around it (the ridged sort of mesh, rather than chain link) we climbed over the fence and found the panel next to the one we had climbed was loose and opened like a gate.... there were well trodden paths in here right down to the bottom of the quarry. It became obvious very quickly that the paths were created by climbers, since there are hangers absolutely everywhere. There was a massive lake at the bottom with crystal clear water, but more importantly... A MINE!!
I wanted to have a look in the mine, but the water was above wellies height and I was in boots, didn’t have a change of clothes or a torch. Although my head torch has resurrected itself since milwr, all my spare batteries and lamps were in my other bag in the boot of the van. (we had decided at the last minute to go in the pickup and I’d forgot about the other bag!) Hence the crap photo, camera flash was all but useless.
I will definitely be going back here very soon to have a look down there, if anyone’s interested let me know. If the mine turns out to be tiny, there are plenty of opportunities for climbing/ abseiling or swimming!!
Since the whole site is now owned by the council, I’ll ask around and see if it’s possible to get access to the bomb depot. It’s worth a try. If not, a good pair of bolt cutters might just do the job...
We then headed back to the car and went to Pete’s Eats for din dins, and had planned to head over to the other side of the lake to have a look at the inclines and stuff by the slate museum, but it started to rain, so we went home!
The mine you looked at is actually a tunnel which I believe went through in to the Bomb Store via the open cast quarry, and it is blocked after about 200m. They have made a good job of keeping people out but there could potential be a way in. Last time I was there the first fence had a hole in it, go through it, you now need to get to the bottom some how, once in the bottom there is a small stream which flows in to the back of the bomb store, but they may well have block this up as well.
A couple of pictures of the stream from inside and outside.
A mate of mine actually dived the lake, apparently everything was covered in a strange furry growth. I was told that when they decommissioned the store they actually dumped most of the old bombs in this lake, but they have been removed now.
Thanks John. I know which quarry you're on about. I got to top an couldn't see an obvious way down so I went back out. I could hear the stream at the bottom though...
and I hear they got MOST of the bombs out of the lake :whistle:
Cheers Iestyn, This place has been on my to do list for a couple of years so at least I now have a rough idea of how to get there. I'm a little disappointed there are no photos of said inverted chav though :evil:
The car had gone by the time i was passing on the way home and I couldn't take photos while he was stood there now could I!? haha!
and why not? :whistle: :P
I should have taken a photo of HIM in the lake! :lol: