{"id":641,"date":"2026-03-25T22:37:19","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T22:37:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/andygawthrope.photography\/?page_id=641"},"modified":"2026-04-07T10:08:43","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T09:08:43","slug":"welsh-slate","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/andygawthrope.photography\/index.php\/projects\/welsh-slate\/","title":{"rendered":"Welsh slate"},"content":{"rendered":"

Welsh slate<\/h2>\n\n\n

Throughout my life I’ve had an interest in history. For a while that was British prehistory, mainly the Neolithic period, and is probably why, even today, I enjoy making images at locations such as Avebury. Entwined with this is an awareness that we live in a moment of time and today’s future is tomorrow’s past. Human creations rise and fall and once something falls its all to easy for it to be lost from history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rise of the Welsh slate industry really got underway in the 18th Century, persisted through the 19th and declined in the 20th. In that time it dominated Northwest Welsh economy. The Slate Landscape of Northwest Wales<\/a> was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2021, acknowledging its profound impact on global industrial culture and the unique skills of its workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The quarrying of slate was transformative to the natural landscape. Everything to support a large human workforce was needed including schools, worker accommodations, power generation, transporter inclines, saw mills, engine sheds, railways etc. Today, in the 21st Century, much has been lost and what remains is quickly fading. It is this sense of loss combined with a love of photography and an interest in using photography as a documentary medium that is the genesis of my Welsh slate project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I started the project in 2025 and deliberately chose not to define completion to give me the freedom to progress and evolve the project. So, at this time, I don’t know whether it’ll be in book form like my recent Graffiti and Grunge project, a series of large-format prints or both.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Images currently part of the project are below:<\/p>\n\n\nngg_shortcode_0_placeholder\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Throughout my life I’ve had an interest in history. For a while that was British prehistory, mainly the Neolithic period, and is probably why, even today, I enjoy making images at locations such as Avebury. Entwined with this is an awareness that we live in a moment of time and today’s future is tomorrow’s past. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":957,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"agp-page","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-641","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/andygawthrope.photography\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/andygawthrope.photography\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/andygawthrope.photography\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andygawthrope.photography\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andygawthrope.photography\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=641"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/andygawthrope.photography\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/641\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1207,"href":"https:\/\/andygawthrope.photography\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/641\/revisions\/1207"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andygawthrope.photography\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/andygawthrope.photography\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}