Canolfan
Felin Fawr
Centre
Serving the community
From the centre: 08!
Hello and thank you for visiting the Felin Fawr website.
We as a group have been an active party in identifying and highlighting the historic and social value of the Felin Fawr site for several years. In our business plan and development plan, we have identified the significant asset that is Felin Fawr and outlined a range of uses for the site which will increase its value to the local economy and community whilst at the same time, providing revenues to protect and enhance the unique and important industrial and social heritage which the site contains.
The Felin Fawr Works near Bethesda dates from 1800 and was once the backbone of the renowned Penrhyn Slate Quarry and included slate mills a foundry, engineering facilities and quarry railway. The works closed in September of 1965 when workshop facilities were centralized within the quarry itself and in 1990 Cyngor Gwynedd Council purchased the site in order to protect it. Listing by Cadw followed, with their report describing the site as “a remarkable complex of buildings that are amongst the finest of their kind in Wales” Part of the site including the slate slab mills were beautifully restored in 1991 and are now utilized as light industrial units, however other historically important buildings have been left to deteriorate.
so what happens next?
We are focussed on conserving a workable representation of the site as it was, but as part of a live, local network of real businesses that enable young people and visitors to understand that the skills employed by former generations and the ethos of adaptability, local repair and manufacturing, and self-sufficiency are going to be as relevant to community survival tomorrow as they were yesterday.
and a few notes:
We feel that it is extremely important that the Felin Fawr site is developed for the benefit of the whole community as far as is possible. There is scope to provide a range of services and amenities to the communities of Dyffryn Ogwen. Also, it would make sense over the long term to develop the mixture of businesses on the site into a cluster which increased economic and environmental sustainability of the local area and which had a logical or trading relationship with one another. This represents an interesting possibility of mixing the ‘green business park’ concept, becoming popular across Wales, with the conservation of social and industrial heritage.
Please note that this website is under construction and more information will be added shortly.
site info
© 2008 PRHT Ltd web design by Mark Riley