Mineral Wealth Iolo's Jewels of Wales

In this series, I'll look at some of the jewels of Wales and the wildlife associated with them.

These are landscape gems.

My choice of some of the very best

natural and industrial landscapes of Wales.

I'll be meeting people who live, work and play

in this spectacular scenery.

I'll be finding out why they love it so much.

It's a national treasure, really, you've got everything here.

I'll be exploring the sea.

And I'll be visiting industrial sites,

once exploited, but now being won over by nature.

I'll be finding out how the Welsh landscape is being used today,

and discovering some very surprising wildlife

right amongst this dramatic activity.

Wales has terrific landscape,

and it's been enjoyed and exploited for centuries.

It's been shaped by nature and by man.

In this part of my journey through the Jewels of Wales,

I'm looking at industrial Wales

and its effect on the Welsh landscape and wildlife.

How industry re-shaped the land, and, as the work ended,

how nature returned.

Also, the secondary effects of industry on the Welsh landscape,

such as canal and railway building.

And the fabulous wildlife that lives in these new habitats.

Also the great parks created by industrial riches,

which in turn led to a wealth of wildlife.

The biggest industry in north west Wales during the past 200 years

was slate mining.

The whole region is full of old slate quarries.

Most, like Dorothea Quarry in the Nantlle Valley,

which is only a stone's throw from Snowdon,

have closed.

Industrial work finished here nearly 40 years ago.

It's now nature's turn to work the slate.

I love coming to old slate quarries like this.

Whenever I come, it makes me wonder what it was like 100 years before.

All the men, probably hundreds of them,

the noise, the shouting, the dust,

the pollution here, and I bet they never thought the work would end.

And they wouldn't have thought that less than 50 years after the quarry closed

that nature would be taking over completely.

You've got birch and you've got willow, and even ash and oak

taking over everywhere and that's dragging in the birds as well.

Willow warblers and dunnocks singing away over here.

And give another 100 years and I bet that they'll be very few signs

of the quarry left at all, it'll be completely taken over.

Dorothea slate quarry is a magnificent landscape,

and probably one of the best examples in Wales

of re-colonisation by nature.

As the quarrymen left and the tipping of slate waste stopped,

plants such as mosses and ferns began to colonise.

As these plants died, they helped to form soil on the tips,

and eventually there was enough root hold and nourishment for trees.

Soon after, woodland birds such as the robin returned.

It's a rich and stunning landscape, and one of Wales' industrial jewels.

Some of the slate mining in north west Wales was underground,

particularly in the Blaenau Ffestiniog area.

It's a big mining region and some quarries are still being worked.

High up above Gloddfa Ganol quarry,

which at one time was the biggest slate quarry in the world,

is Cwmorthin.

All right, lads.

'And in the cwm is the entrance to a huge disused quarry.

'I'm joining two cavers, John Osbourne and Roger Sexton,

'who know the quarry well and have agreed to help me explore the hidden landscape.'

'The entrance is usually locked.

'You need special permission and expert help to enter the quarry.

'And for good reason - it's a very dangerous place.'

It's deep, isn't it?

'The mine has many miles of tunnels and hundreds of chambers.'

These would be the trolleys to carry out the slate?

They would have been to take out waste.

Mind the big drop on the right.

'It's full of old tracks, tools and machinery.'

'There are many treacherous dead ends.'

Dangerous place again, isn't it? Long way down there.

'The mine began its life during the first part of the 19th century,

'with over 500 men employed at its peak.'

All this machinery just lying around.

'The work dwindled during the first half of the 20th century

'due to the decline of the slate industry,

'and finally ended around 30 years ago.'

What I find incredible is they had to bring all this down here in the first place.

We must be 100 feet down by now, and more,

and this weighs tonnes and they put it all together

and it looks as if they've just left it as if they were expecting to come back

on the Monday morning again, but for some reason, that's it.

'The mine has many levels,

'and the deeper you descend the wetter it gets.'

'With the water pumps switched off,

'the quarry constantly fills with water.'

Oh, wow!

'Some of the chambers created by the quarrymen are enormous.'

Oh, man, what a place! What a place to come and work.

Aye, it is impressive.

So would there be many workers on this face here?

As I understand it, no, it would have been one, possibly two,

on the face at one time,

with a couple of helpers down on the floor.

That would have been generations of work just to dig this one chamber.

Yeah, each shot holder's hours of work, it was all done by hand.

It's an incredible achievement.

And deadly work sometimes, wasn't it?

Very. This mine had an entertaining nickname of the Slaughterhouse.

Was it? The Slaughterhouse.

And I've walked the moors above here many a time and I just didn't

realise that I was really walking over what is now a hollow mountain.

Incredible, absolutely amazing place.

Tell you what, light the flares, let's see just how big it is.

'There's very little nature here.

'But it's a time capsule of Welsh industrial life,

'an incredible hidden jewel

'and a memorial to the quarrymen who worked here.'

Wales has a great deal of valuable geology.

And much of the landscape has been exploited for centuries.

This old limestone quarry is at Llanymynech

on the border with England, south of Oswestry.

It has the distinction of being a nature reserve

both in England and Wales.

I'm on the Welsh part, owned by Montgomeryshire Wildlife Trust.

During spring, it's full of cowslips,

forget-me-nots,

and a whole range of insects and butterflies.

Even dragonflies pop in.

But what I like most are the cliff faces formed by quarries -

they're ideal nesting sites for many birds.

And one bird that's exploited this new habitat

probably more that any other one is the peregrine falcon.

There's a male perched high up on one of the ledges here.

He's got a fantastic vantage point - he can see probably a mile and more,

so, any prey passing by, he's going to dash off.

And this one's interesting as well because most peregrine males

have got this slatey grey back,

they've got the dark mask and they're very pale,

almost white chest there,

but this one is a dark individual.

And peregrines have been able to move into new areas,

thanks to these quarries.

So peregrines are actually commoner in Wales now

probably than they've ever been.

In addition to valuable stone, Wales also has mineral wealth,

and there's no richer prize than gold.

And gold has been mined in Wales for thousands of years.

This is the Mawddach River near Dolgellau in Mid Wales.

As it courses through Coed y Brenin Forest,

the river cuts into the rock to form a gorge.

It's not only a stunning location,

but the site of one of Wales' biggest old gold mines.

The riverbanks are full of relics belonging to Wales' gold rush past.

Gold was mined here very recently, some 20 years ago,

and George Hall was the mine's last manager.

George, what's the history of gold and gold mining in this area?

I feel sure that somebody must have discovered gold around here

maybe 3,000 years ago,

and got some gold.

But the knowledge of it seems to have been forgotten.

Then, of course, in 1849,

gold was found in California.

And then it was found in Australia and people thought,

"Well, wait a minute, maybe there is gold around Dolgellau."

There were several different mines around here

-all at the same time?

-Oh, yes, there must have been a dozen mines

-around here, working on a small scale.

-Gwynfynydd would have been

one of the biggest, when was it at its height?

The big gold rush here was 1861.

And in its heyday, how many men would have been working here?

Oh, at least 250.

-That many?

-Oh, yes. Goodness me, yes.

And I suppose the million-pound question has to be,

is there a lot more gold down there, do you think?

In my opinion, yes. There's a lot of gold in this district.

I reckon there's a lot of gold still in Gwynfynydd. The problem is,

do you spend more money driving tunnels to find it

than you actually get out when you come across the gold?

That's the problem - you've got to really be very canny.

In the meantime, the old mine buildings

have been occupied by wildlife.

Redstarts and coal tits both nest here.

It's an ideal location for pied wagtails.

There's plenty of insects and water

around the old ruins and spoil heaps.

And the gaps under the roof are ideal nesting sites.

Like other birds, a pied wagtail looks its best during spring,

when the black and white colours are particularly striking.

The big industry in South Wales was, of course, coal mining.

Most of the mines are now closed,

but this vast industrial operation at Ffos y Fran near Merthyr Tydfil

is part of a long-term scheme, which is recovering coal

from old mines and tips that used to exist on this site.

The old mines and tips are being removed,

and the huge industrial site will be re-landscaped back to moorland.

What is surprising is that surrounding this enormous industry

lives one of Wales' rarest breeding birds.

The lapwing, and what's even more remarkable is that they nest here.

Although you'll see plenty of lapwings around Wales,

especially during the winter near the coast,

this sight is exceptional these days.

There are very few breeding pairs of lapwings left in Wales.

The ecologist that looks after the lapwings

and other wildlife on the site is Kylie Jones.

It's funny - you think of lapwing as being a farmland bird,

but, in Wales, more and more now they're on these industrial sites.

You know, the damp bare areas, which is really good for them.

-Do they do all right here?

-They do. They type of ground up here

is perfect for them. They're not here in the winter,

they come back to nest now at this time of year.

They do pretty well,

but unfortunately they are heavily predated by gulls and crows

and that's the main thing that is affecting them.

I tell you the other thing -

lots of them behind us now singing - skylarks.

-Yeah, a lot of skylarks on site.

-Yeah, it's good, isn't it?

It's nice to hear, and it's amazing to think that we're here in the middle of all this machinery.

What's going to happen in the end, cos you're going to have to fill all of this in?

We're moving some of the rock to take some of the coal out,

but we've already started back-filling there in the distance.

The scheme's going to run for about 21 years in total,

but that's with complete restoration after care.

So the site will be grassed over and put back to habitat to attract back the wildlife we have around here.

And the lapwings, of course, will arrive in very early spring up here?

Yeah. Usually about actually December, January time

is the first sightings we see.

-That early, are they? They're up here, then?

-Yeah, they are.

They come up, but they don't actually use this area to begin with.

They tend to stick in a different area. We've got a couple of nice ponds -

they use that to feed. You can see up to 15, 16 birds there

early on in the season, then they tend to disperse

to different areas on the site and around the site as well.

Oh, that's quite nifty. And I suppose they pair up

and you see this fantastic display they do and everything else?

Beautiful display. You can't really miss the lapwing.

The other big industry in South Wales was iron production,

and the Cyfarthfa Ironworks

at Merthyr was one of the biggest in Britain.

Remnants of the old blast furnaces are still standing

and have been left as a reminder of Wales' industrial heritage.

It's only when you're standing right underneath these blast furnaces

that you realise how impressive, how enormous they are.

And can you imagine being here 150 years ago?

Fires everywhere, noise, shouting.

It would have been a vision of hell, really.

And just look at it now at dawn.

These holes dotted all along the walls are full of jackdaws.

30 or 40 birds over there, a few more over this side as well.

They've just moved into these holes, they're roosting there overnight.

Later on in the year, they'll be nesting in there, too.

I find it incredible that...

this massive building that man has built,

abandoned, has now been taken over by jackdaws.

The jackdaws have pretty much taken over every nook and cranny.

And they give a great display at dawn,

as they roll call before setting off for the day to feed.

I couldn't imagine many people visiting

this industrial heritage site at Cyfarthfa, especially at dawn.

But this is not only a special historical site,

but a great location for birds, too.

The industrial age brought with it the need

and the ability to build railways.

Like in the rest of Britain, there was large-scale railway construction

in Wales during the 19th century.

There was one big difference in Wales -

the landscape was very difficult for track-laying.

This resulted in the building of many impressive viaducts

all over the country.

This is one of those hidden little gems that I think

makes Wales a very special place.

Pontsarn viaduct, incredible place.

We're right on the edge of the Brecon Beacons

and yet, on the other side, right on the edge of Merthyr Tyfil.

The railway line here would have linked the two,

running from the South Wales valleys and the towns there

over the mountain to Brecon.

And, in its heyday, Pontsarn Station n a Sunday in the summer,

it would have been full of hundreds of people all coming up here

to picnic, to walk, to enjoy the view,

just as I'm doing today.

It must've cost a fortune to build the railways,

especially this one that connected Bala with Ffestiniog in North Wales.

This is Blaen y Cwm viaduct in Cwm Prysor near Trawfynydd.

It's one of 70 viaducts and bridges

built on 25 miles of railway line.

It's one of the most expensive railways built in its time.

Many cuttings also had to be dug for the tracks,

and in hard rock that must have been very labour intensive,

but it has produced a wonderful wildlife habitat.

I like these disused railway lines -

there must be thousands of miles of them all over Britain -

but this is my favourite.

It's become a real haven for wildlife.

It's a linear nature reserve, really,

and you see some of the upland plants have moved in.

There's a small woodland here mainly of birch and mountain ash

and a lot of heather as well.

And those will attract in birds like willow warblers and redstarts.

But what the engineers have done on this particular section,

completely by accident, is they've created an artificial gorge.

And it's got all the properties of a natural gorge in that

it doesn't receive much sunlight, it's also incredibly wet.

And because of that, you've got a whole host of plants

that flourish in there.

There's fir club moss, but, more than anything else,

it's the mosses and the ferns and they carpet the whole wall

for a long, long part of this section here.

The ferns and mosses look stunning throughout the year,

but during the spring and summer

the old railway cutting fills with colour.

In a way, the plants here represent at least three different habitats.

The wet parts of the cutting

are ideal for liverworts, mosses and ferns.

The drier areas suit flowers like betony -

a plant that you associate with drier grassland or woodland.

There are also open moorland plants here.

This is a butterwort, which has long, slippery leaves.

When a small insect lands on them,

it slides to the base of the stem and becomes trapped.

The plant then slowly digests the insects.

The other insect-eating plant found here is sundew.

It has a similar way of trapping insects.

When an insect is trapped in the hairy gluey tentacles

of the leaves, they'll close and the insect will be digested.

Even before railways, canals had been built in Wales

to provide transport for industry.

This is Pontcysyllte Aqueduct in North Wales.

It was built during the early 1800s

to carry the Llangollen Canal over the River Dee.

It's the longest and highest aqueduct in Britain

and a World Heritage Site.

Canals are used for leisure these days,

but, of course, they're great wildlife habitats.

Probably the best in Wales for wildlife

is the Montgomery Canal near Welshpool.

Not far from the village of Llanymynech, the canal has to cross

the River Vyrnwy.

The aqueduct may not be on the scale of Pontcysyllte,

but it's nonetheless quite stunning, and certainly full of wildlife.

I'm going to have a closer look underwater.

This is the Montgomery Canal, which goes from the English border

right across into the heart of Wales.

And it's one of my favourite canals.

It's been closed for about 60-odd years now, and in that time

it's become a great place for wildlife.

I'm trying to film some fish here. There were lots earlier

and once I put the camera in, they've all disappeared

into the vegetation. But I'm hoping I can get something now in a minute.

And the canal has acted as a kind of compensatory area for Mid Wales

because a lot of the ponds and lakes have been drained,

so you find the wildlife that would have been there in this canal.

It's packed full of frogs and toads and newts,

and quite a few fish - if only I could find them.

And most of the canals were built because of industry,

because of heavy industry - steel and coal -

but this one's a little bit different, as it was built in an agricultural area,

so it was built to carry limestone into the heart of Wales

to improve the land, and then to carry meat and wool the other way

to the heart of the English Midlands.

The canal is full of tadpoles,

which shows just how important it is for frogs and toads.

Eventually, the fish reappeared, and there were shoals of them.

These are rudd, a fish that's present in big numbers in the canal.

The rich plant growth is ideal for freshwater snails.

They really do well here.

And the wildlife above the water is equally as rich.

It's an exceptional site for a whole range of damselflies.

These are beautiful demoiselles.

The male has very bright blue-green metallic colours.

The females are less colourful.

The demoiselles are pairing up

above the rich pools created in the old locks.

It's a perfect site for egg laying and for their larvae to live.

The big industries in Wales brought wealth, but wealth for the few.

In North Wales, they were the owners of slate quarries,

and this wealth enabled the owners to build huge mansions

and design magnificent parks on their land.

This is Penrhyn Castle on the outskirts of Bangor,

and it's not one of those castles that was built centuries ago

to repel invading armies. It's only 200 years old.

It was built by Lord Penrhyn, a man who, in his day,

would have been a multi-millionaire - money made from slavery,

made from the sugar cane plantations further west

and also from local industry.

And, at that time, the biggest industry in North Wales

was the slate industry.

He would have built the castle in a nice quiet area.

He wanted tranquillity and, because of that,

surrounding the castle you've got these wonderful grounds.

They're not gardens - they're bigger than that. It's more like a parkland

and they are packed to the rafters full of all kinds of wildlife.

The castle is set in a superb location

and is overlooked by the Carneddau Range of Snowdonia.

It's probably the best example

of industrial wealth and power in Wales.

It's today owned by the National Trust and open to the public,

so it's become a parkland jewel that can be enjoyed by everyone.

And it does have some great wild areas.

There are fields full of bluebells in the spring.

And what's really good about public parks like this

is that the birds here are used to people.

This is a particularly nice part of the garden here.

It's woodland. Let me show you around some of it.

It's a mix of native and exotic trees.

We've got oak and we've got beech here,

but we've also got monkey puzzle tree over there,

some exotic pines as well.

And the birdsong, there's a blackbird singing here, blue tits,

robins, chaffinch calling.

And what I really want to show you is down the bottom there,

about 60-odd metres away, is a big old beech tree.

Now some of these trees - the oaks, the beech -

would have been here when the castle was built

because some of them must be 300 years old, and even more than that.

And a branch has fallen off years ago and a hole has formed.

In there is tawny owl nest. And, at the moment, as I speak,

one of the adults is perched at the entrance to the hole,

looking up, just making sure that I don't go any nearer than this.

The owl is guarding her chicks,

which you can just about see in the background.

Here's the shot again with the chicks highlighted.

If there's a better view of a tawny owl with chicks in broad daylight,

I've yet to find it.

In the next programme, I'll be taking you

to a wonderful woodland and wetland.

I'll be exploring Wales' biggest estuary,

and I'll be walking along a fantastic stretch of coast.

I'll even be venturing underwater.

It's my pick of the best landscape and wildlife of lowland Wales.

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