3-011-366 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Cutting the first turf of the Carnarvon and Llanberis Railway, 1864. The railway '...will not only afford great accommodation to...travellers, but will be of the greatest importance in the carriage of the mineral traffic of the district, consisting of slates, ironstone, sulphur, and copper...The line was projected by Mr. Rolfe, a local engineer...The contract has been let to Messrs. Dalrymple and Findlay...three or four thousand people assembled under the shadow of Snowdon to witness the proceedings...[Present were] the Hon. F. Wynn, with Miss Emily Wynn and other members of the family of Lord Newborough, accompanied by Mr. Thomas Turner, the chairman, and other directors of the company, and many of the local gentry...[Miss Wynn] performed the office of first "navvy" with admirable tact and elegance. An enthusiastic cheer greeted the discharge of the first sod from the elegant barrow she wheeled to the end of the platform, and this was followed by a salvo from some 18-pounder guns which the Carnarvon Artillery had brought upon the ground. Their heavy booming shook the earth, and was responded to by the echoes along the whole mountain range till the sounds died away in the distance. The effect was inconceivably grand'. From "Illustrated London News", 1864.