Historical background
An area along the banks of the Seiont, where several industrial
sites, some still functioning, were built along the river from
perhaps the sixteenth-century onwards, and where clay extraction
and brick manufacture, established c. 1850, still continue.
Key historic landscape characteristics
Relict industrial archaeology
Apart from the clay-pit itself, which has now grown to considerable
size, the area is dominated by industrial structures and features,
the majority of which are constructed of red brick. It is clear
that the possibilities the river offered both as a power-source
and as a cleansing agent
has led to the establishment of a variety of industrial sites
in succession to each other, and that these include corn-milling,
slate-sawing, a tannery and brick manufacture.
The nineteenth-century brickworks complex, established c.
1850, has been largely demolished, including the Hoffman kilns,
though a number of derelict houses survive on site. The manufacture
of bricks now takes place in a large centralised facility set
up in 1968 which includes grinders, pug-mills, kilns and sorting
equipment. A saw-tooth-roofed range to the north-east of the
area remains in use for the manufacture of tissue-paper. These
buildings were erected during the war for the manufacture of
Lancaster bomber fuselage noses, and were adapted for the manufacture
of furniture and washing machines after hostilities ceased.
They were constructed on the site of the Peblig brickworks,
operational from 1880 to the 1920s.
Other industrial buildings are being re-used, such as the
Glan-Morfa slate works, now an office supplies warehouse, and
a stable block associated with the Seiont corn mill. Several
nineteenth century water-courses survive and continue to carry
water, and the site of the standard-gauge rail access from
the Llanberis branch line is evident.
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Landscape Character Map
