Beneath the shadows of slate heaps and the Eryri mountains lies the Gwynedd town of Blaenau Ffestiniog. The historical town’s chief industry in the 1760s was slate mining and from then it became one of the three main places to produce Gwynedd’s colossal slate industry. The areas of Dinorwig Quarry in Llanberis, Penrhyn Quarry in Bethesda, alongside Blaenau’s Llechwedd, Maenofferen and Cwmorthin, became known as the region that roofed the world.
The 'city of slate' brought many fortunes for the families that owned the quarries and mines while a worker would make around 12 pence a day. Soon it became an area known for other resources. Commissioned in 1963, Ffestiniog Power Station was the UK's first major pumped storage power facility – capitalising on the rain that so often poured on the area to create hydro power. In 1965 the nearby Trawsfynydd nuclear power station was also commissioned.
