Capel Curig grave Leonard Spencer Salt

Grave of Leonard SaltLeonard Spencer Salt (d.1910)

Born on 15 July 1869, Leonard Salt became a partner in his family’s brewing business, Thomas Salt & Company of Burton on Trent. He was educated at Repton School and Pembroke College, Cambridge, and was an accomplished cricketer, footballer and runner.

He became an experienced mountaineer, scaling the Matterhorn and other Alpine peaks. Every Easter he climbed in Snowdonia. On one occasion he helped to carry down from Tryfan the body of a fellow climber, an experience which had shocked him.

At 10am on Easter Monday 1910, he set out from the Royal Hotel with a couple of friends from Birmingham to climb Y Lliwedd, on Snowdon’s southern flank. There he and four others attached themselves to a long rope and began to climb a precipice, Leonard leading. Somehow he lost his footing and fell to his death. The other four would also have fallen had the rope not snapped.

An inscription records that his tombstone was erected as “a tribute of affection by many sorrowing friends, and the workmen of his firm”.

Return to Churchyard page