[georgie]

after my little mooch in the bomb stores i headed over to the hills of vivian/dinorwig quarry

ive tried many times to get into this place but it always proved impossible

however newly refurbished and open to the public i found it rather interesting......and free

a bit of history...

This old hospital in Llanberis was for the men who worked at the Dinorwig Quarry in the 19th and 20th centuries. The idea was to have a hospital close to their place of work so they could get back to work as soon as possible after they received treatment.

There was a hospital in Bangor, but that was over ten miles away and took an age to get to by horse and cart - or even by car.

There were over 3,000 workers in the Dinorwig quarry and there were a lot of accidents - broken bones, lost fingers, crush injuries and worse.

This hospital was one of the first in the country to get an X-ray machine - it's still here and it's quite a horrible thing to look at, even though the technology behind it hasn't changed all that much.

It was also one of the first buildings in the area to have hot and cold running water and electricity and there's an old pharmacy here.

There's also an operating theatre with old equipment like a skill saw to remove injured fingers and an examination couch - which isn't really a couch. It's sort of like a large hot water bottle. They would fill the bladder of the table with hot water to heat the table, and lie the quarryman on it. The quarries can be very cold places, especially if you've been injured.

Splints and other equipment at Dinorwig quarry hospital The doctors would do all sorts of things here. If there was a serious accident, they would take the opportunity to use new techniques to treat the problem. One in particular was Dr Mills-Roberts, who worked here at the turn of the century before going off to World War One. He was also a footballer for Preston Northend and helped them to the FA Cup and league double.

The Dinorwig hospital remained until the coming of the NHS in the 1950s. It became a first aid post before closing along with the quarry in the 1960s.

Unfortunately, when it was closed everything was removed. Fortunately, someone had the foresight to keep lots of the equipment at the county archives and we were able to recreate the quarry hospital and open it to the public. It's one of the few hospitals of its kind in Britain.

and finally the morg.............