Once a month I walk down through Padarn Country Park to collect a prescription and any other small items of shopping I might need. Usually in a concession to age I come back by bus, but the vagaries of an emergency timetable mean this is no longer practicable, so after a brief packed lunch I decided to go up the hard way, the number one incline of the Dinorwic Quarry. Successful expedition, 5 miles in 4 hours. Here are some of the photos I took on the way back.

This is a section of the “Spooner survey” taken at SH58856018, the top of the incline I climbed being to the left. This replicates a photograph of the same location on page 26 of Damien Carrington’s book “Delving in Dinorwig”, which describes this venture, an abortive plan to build a railway from the quarry to the Menai Strait at Port Dinorwic (now Y Felinheli). Only a few hundred metres of the line were actually built.

The incline levels off at this point to allow trucks to pass each other, and you now have views to the south. This is the well known Dolbadarn Castle

and a view of Llanberis itself

The incline then resumes and the next photograph is of Anglesey Barracks, which was built to house workers who lived in Anglesey but worked at the quarry six days a week. These buildings are listed

with the usual collection of feral goats behind. These come down to this level during the winter and spring, but will soon work their way back up the mountain tops

left the incline at this point and walked up the normal path to the village. Here is the remains of an uprooted tree, about two hundred of these were blown down in the “Beast from the East” storm in March 2018, which left some of us without electricity for 48 hours. The sun doesn’t always shine here!

Up at the top of the hill there is the old gunpowder store for the quarry, which is now a climbing hut for the Manchester climbing club. You can see slates on the vertical walls to keep the rain out, but you can’t see that the walls inside are actually cavity walls, since damp gunpowder is a menace. Possibly the earliest example of cavity walling.

And finally the last stile of the walk on the way home, Victorian and modern versions, take your pick!

A lovely but tiring walk, and quite legitimate under lockdown regulations.