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Slate for Paving
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IntroductionSlate has been used as a building stone for
centuries. Its laminar nature makes it easy to cleave and work,
rendering it a popular choice for roofing and walling as well as
paving. However, stone is heavy, and slate is no exception, so, hauling
paving or walling stone around the country didn't make much sense in
the days before motor vehicles and a nationwide transport system, and
consequently, it was only the high "added value" thin-cut slates for
roofing that were worth transporting any significant distance. So,
despite all it advantages, slate's use a paving material has been more
or less limited to its immediate area, notably the quarrying districts
of North-west Wales, the English Lake District, and the far South-west
peninsula. In Scotland and Ireland, where slate is scarce, whinstone
was, and is, a popular deputy. |
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The quarries of Snowdonia are renowned for the
superb quality slate that is hewn from the shadows of , and
whole communities have worked the local slates of Blaenau, Llanberis
and Penrhyn for countless generations. The entire built environment is
dominated by this highly characteristic rock, with the heavier,
poorly-worked lump slate used for walling, and the beautifully cleaved
6-9mm thick slate used for roofing, while riven
flagstones would be used for pavements, or dressed to form kerbs and
edgings - even the headstones in the local graveyards would by formed
from lovingly-honed slate. |
Old Slate Flagstone Paving in Blaenau
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Slate Kerb in Dollgellau
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Slate Crazy Paving in Conway
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