Dragonstone

 

I was initially puzzled about what to call this big imposing concrete structure. Some urbexers refer to it as the Aztecs Temple, while others say it looks like a super villain Headquarters, or perhaps even a moonbase if the scene was rid of all its vegetation. I was going to settle on "Big Quarry Thing," because that's exactly what it is, but I have since learned that this thing has become a film set for "House of the Dragon," the show that seeks to redeem the lackluster dropping-of-the-ball that occurred in the latter seasons of Game of Thrones. In particular, rumour has it that this place will be Dragonstone, the seat of House Targaryen, or at least be used for some external Dragonstone scenes. It definitely looks too industrial to pass as anything medieval so I very much doubt it will be used for any establishing shots. Having said that, they are adding bits of fake walls to it, there's a lot that can be done in post-production and with creative camera angles, and it would be pretty cool to see a dragon perched on top of it.

I took an image from the Game of Thrones wiki to show you what Dragonstone looks like. 

(Image not mine, obviously)

 

And yeah, I can see it. If you are going to transform any structure in Wales into Dragonstone then this is a good a pick as any. 

 

But what's the story of this place before a bunch of inbred dragon tamers moved in? 

Well it started in 1850 when a chap called Samuel Holland, who had a habit of opening quarries and then selling them as soon as they became profitable, decided to open a granite quarry here. The nearby village also developed after the quarry opened, and the whole caboodle was named after Trevor Jones, the first foreman. Typically the name "Trevor" now gets Welshified to Trefor, despite him being a Leicestershire man. 

The quarry developed gradually. It applied for a jetty in 1855 but was denied. The application was then reviewed in 1867, leading to one finally being built in 1870, meaning that now they could transport their goods via boat.

Up until then, transportation was mainly done via horse, but as of 1873, they introduced steam locomotives with a tramway incline. This can be seen in many a vintage photo, but I went with the one that also shows the big concrete extravaganza in the distance on the hillside.

(Photo not mine, obviously)

 

The big concrete thing doesn't actually appear in that many old images, and that's because it was only built in 1923.  It also has a very different shape in this older image, indicative of modifications over the years.

 

 

This was known to locals as "Y Gwaeth Mawr," which means "The Big Works," and it's basically the crushing block. At the bottom we have the main loading point, where wagons would go underneath these huge hoppers, and have all the crushed rock dropped into them. 

 

Above that, what we see now is just the bare bones of whats left, but in its heyday there would have been machinery and walkways, and an actual roof.

 

I was actually pretty lucky to find some old shots from 1979 by a chap called Hugh Emlyn Cullen, and back then there was a lot more to it, albeit derelict even then.

 

(Photo credit: Hugh Emlyn Cullen, obviously)

We happened to make the trek up to the crusher block on a reasonably good day, so we got to enjoy this awesome view of the sea.

 

 

There's a few smaller structures here which I've got conflicting information on. One source says that this is where the granite sets were trimmed. Another says that these were powder store rooms, so I can't be certain.

 

 

So this was the loading bay. The wagons would come through here, directly underneath these huge hoppers. 

 

 

 I'll include another 1979 shot from this angle just for comparison. 

 

(Photo credit Hugh Emlyn Curry, obviously)

 

It is possible to walk up a pathway to get to the top of the structure, but I have a reputation for idiocy to uphold, so like any self-respecting imbecile I decided to ignore the path entirely and climb the building instead. Perhaps I'll succeed, or perhaps my tales of derring-do are derring-done. Looking forward to finding out!

 

 Here I'm looking up the structure from the bottom of the giant hoppers.

 

 

And predictably here I am looking down into them.

 

 

My images don't really capture just how huge these big stone buckets are, but those holes down there in the corner are crawlable. A human can fit through them. Back in the day these would have been full of crushed rock, so presumably those holes would have been plugged.

 

 

Apparently this was actually the worlds largest granite quarry at one point. By 1931 it had produced 1,157,000 tons of the stuff, and it's often credited with being used to pave Liverpool. But I think personally that it's a little outlandish to suppose that the largest granite quarry in the world only paved one UK city. No doubt London and Manchester got their fair share too. 

 

 

High above my head is a set of stairs that can't be walked to, but not being one to let a simple thing like gravity stop me, I'm going to figure out how to get to them anyway.  If you look closely, the remains of a door frame are at the bottom of the steps. 

 

 

 

Not far from the structure is a pile of rocks, and if you look closely, you can see a set of steps here too, remnants from when the structure was a lot bigger.

 

But this is the area that caught my eye. I assume that these were chutes feeding the crushed rock into the hoppers, or at least were part of them.

 

 They're my way of climbing up to the next level.

 

 

And here we are, now on top of that stairway to nowhere. And at the top of these steps I found a doorway into the structure.

 

 

It's not much, but it's pretty cool. The tunnel doesn't go very far. It just leads back out of the structure again.

 

 

But it does offer a bit of a view. 

 

 

Another callback to when all this was "indoors," here we have floor tiles! 

 

 

And looking down this way, you can see the slope at the top of the hoppers that I scrambled up to get here. Lee, my friend and fellow urbexer, is also down there. Unlike me, as you can probably tell by the way he's chilling while I'm doing all this, he has a fully functioning survival instinct.

 

 

There's another interior bit here, but it's just a ladder to nowhere. 

 

 

So presumably this little crevice once housed some kind of machine, or perhaps it was even bigger, but additions to the structure have made it a bit more cramped. I don't know.

 

But from here, it's possible to take a set of stairs the rest of the way to the top...

 

 

...Or at least it would be, if half the stairs hadn't fallen away! This did ruin my plans somewhat, but it would be fine. All I had to do now was walk along the ledge, past the stairs. There wasn't much room to walk on this ledge, what with these stairs in the way, so I would just have to hope that these rotten semi-fallen steps would hold my weight as I clung to them as I squeezed past.

 

 

Looking at Hugh Emlyns images from 1979, the top half of the staircase is visible on the ground below, so it must have fallen rather early on into the buildings abandonment.

 

(Photo credit: Hugh Emlyn Cullen)

 

 There's some other steps over there, cut into the ground. 

 

And here we are at the top! Check out the view!

 

The highest point of the structure was where all the rock was fed into the crushers, where it would then make its downhill journey into the hoppers below.

 

Looking over the side, we can see the remains of the wooden stairs.

And here we can see the wooden platform that they once connected to. I'm not about to stand on that any time soon.

 

All around here we can see various bits of quarry paraphernalia. I'm not sure what any of it is exactly. If I knew anything about quarrying granite, I wouldn't be working in healthcare for barely minimum wage.

 

 

So in the latter half of the 20th century, the quarry faced a bit of a decline. In 1951 the railway was removed, and replaced with road transport. The main incline closed in 1959, with the quarry itself finally closing in 1965. The crusher machinery was all removed, leaving just the concrete and wooden structure rotting away under a corrugated iron shell over the course of several decades. Naturally the concrete has outlived the other bits.

But the quarry is still in use, although this structure is still totally abandoned. In 1985 the quarry was brought back into private ownership by a chap coincidentally named Trevor Davies, a descendant of one of the original quarry workers, and some work does still happen here, albeit in smaller chunks as and when granite is needed. 

 

Primarily this has been to make curling stones. That is, the weird sport where one spins a smooth chunk of rock across an ice rink while people steer it by brushing the ice ahead of it. I don't really understand how it all works, but it definitely seems to require a certain level of skill. If you tuned in to the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics in 2002, then you would have seen curling stones that came from this quarry. In all likelihood they've featured in other Winter Olympic games too, given that there are only two places in the entire world where curling stones are quarried, but that's the one that was explicitly stated in my research.

 

 

And also in recent decades granite from this quarry has been used to build monuments. In 2007 granite from here was taken to Corwen to become a memorial to Owain Glyndwr, the last Prince of Wales to actually be born and bred in Wales. Another rock from here marks the site where Llywelyn ap Gruffydd was killed in 1282, after a lifetime of trying and failing to drive the English out of Wales.

And also, all the way out in the Falklands, a rock from here is a memorial to the former warship, the HMS Glamorgan. 

 

Down below we have a view of the old trimming sheds, or powder store rooms. Whatever they actually were.

 

But despite the quarry still being used occasionally, this building is now little more than one ginormous hillside ornament. It should come as no surprise that it's being used as a film set, because it's just crying out for something cool to be done with it, but I was a little surprised that it would be something medieval themed. When word spread that House of the Dragon was having some scenes shot here, fans began speculating where in Westeros this could possibly be, based on descriptions from the books. Harrenhall seemed to be a common guess, but it was a twitter user who confirmed it as Dragonstone when they posted this image, showing the symbol of House Targaryen.

(Photo credit: https://twitter.com/RedanianIntel )

 

And I'm pretty excited! I was tempted to wait, and do this blog after House of the Dragon came out, so that I could post comparison shots, but who knows how long that will take? I have a backlog of some ninety or so blog posts waiting for me. I'll just edit the shots in later. 

 

And if I don't see a dragon perched on top of this glorious concrete extravaganza, I'll be pissed! 

Check out the view though!

 

That's all I've got for this place. By all means, give it a mooch. If anything it makes for a nice walk. People who want to see it don't have to do anything too extravagant to get to it, and if anyone does want to do something extravagant then they can climb it. The view is amazing. It's very quiet up here, but perhaps that might change once House of the Dragon puts it on the map a bit.

My next couple of blogs will be a bunker and then a chapel. If you like the blog and want to receive regular updates, then unfortunately I can't help you because social media is now an algorithmic hellscape that only serves those who help make it money, and since I have no intention of making money for Zuckerberg, over half my followers don't see what I post at all. However if you want to try anyway then by all means, follow my Instagram, Threads, Facebook, and if you want to try your luck with Musk, follow my Twitter too. I'm also on Vero and Reddit.

Thanks for reading!