Route of Porthgain quarry railway
Here the coast path crosses the route of the Porthgain granite quarry railway. The ruined buildings (see below) are reminders of the railway and the area's busy industrial past.
For 80 years, from 1851 to 1931, Porthgain was a bustling industrial village and port. Slate and granite were quarried nearby for export and local use. Bricks were made in the village using waste slate.
Tramways were initially built for horse-drawn trams (basic wagons) to carry dressed slate from the slate quarry (south of here) to an incline, where a stationary engine lowered the trams to the harbourside. Another tramway took slate waste from the dressing sheds to the clifftop where it was dumped in the sea before the brickworks opened in 1889. The embankments on your seaward side here are of slate waste.
Quarrying at the clifftop at Pen Clegyr began commercially in 1889, initially producing building stone and granite setts for roads in rapidly expanding towns and cities. The Tate Gallery in London is faced with Porthgain granite, as are many of Dublin’s large public buildings. As motor traffic grew, the quarry had its heyday producing crushed granite in various sizes, from 75mm (3 inches) to dust, to build smooth Macadam roads
The quarry railway took stone from the quarry to the crusher and hoppers you can see near the harbour. The line was approximately 600 metres long and had a gauge of 91cm (3ft). The trams were horse-drawn until steam locomotives arrived in 1910. Quarrying ended in July 1931 when the quarry company, United Stone Firms Ltd, went into liquidation.
The parallel stone pillars by the path here supported the water tank which supplied the steam locos. The nearest brick building to the south was the weighbridge, where loaded trams were weighed. The brick ruin beyond it was the shed where the locos were housed and maintained.
The photos, courtesy of Rob and Caroline Jones, show: quarrymen with horse-drawn trams; steam loco Porthgain preparing to haul loaded wagons to the crushing plant; and the quarry’s last loco in the engine shed in 1951 awaiting breaking up for scrap. See the footnotes for more about the locos.
Walk about 50 metres west along the coast path and you’ll see where the railway route leaves the path, on the seward side, and heads down an ever deepening cutting to the disused quarry. The remains of some of the wooden sleepers that carried the rails are still embedded in the surface. The ruins of the quarry workshops and smithy are also visible.
About the place-name Porthgain:
Porth means ‘bay’. Cain may be the lost name of the stream that enters the sea here. Cain (‘fair’) frequently occurs as a Welsh river name. It also occurs as a personal name.
With thanks to Philip Lees, Rob and Caroline Jones, and Dai Thorne
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Footnotes: Porthgain quarry locos
The first loco, named Porthgain, was built in 1909 for the quarry by the Andrew Barclay company, Kilmarnock. Two second-hand locos were bought in 1912.
The final loco arrived in 1929 and replaced the earlier ones. It was built in 1889 for Cwmclydach quarry, Swansea, and later used in reservoir dam construction projects. It remained in the derelict engine shed for 22 years after the Porthgain quarry closed. In the 1951 photo it bears the unofficial name Countess of Rock Leigh and the initials of British Railways beside an attempt at the early BR emblem (a lion above a wheel).