Production of slate from Wincilate’s Aberllefenni mine might be resumed following the sale of the Welsh slate company to David Meredith & Sons.

Wincilate has been owned by John Lloyd’s family for 60 years this year, but now John has decided to ease into retirement.

David Meredith & Sons is run by father and son Robin and David Meredith. They have been producing slate aggregate from quarry waste at various sites, including Aberllefenni, for several years. At Aberllefenni they have also recovered some of the previously discarded blocks from the waste tips for Wincilate to use. They will continue to crush the waste as well as continuing the production of bespoke architectural, memorial and landscape products from the Wincilate workshops, securing the three jobs there.

The slate from the quarry is high quality and has always been particularly well regarded by hand lettercutters. In Wincilate’s early days it was used to make switchboards for electricity companies and enamelled slate fireplaces.

But extraction of new stone came to an end in 2002 when Wally Symonds retired as a director of the company where he had worked for 50 years.

John Lloyd said when Wally retired: “Wally will be irreplaceable.” And so it proved, bringing extraction to an end, although Wincilate continued making slate products using stone from other producers.

John Lloyd has also put 16 houses built for workers at the quarry up for sale. He was also involved in the development of an old slate mine at Machynlleth, Powys, into the ‘King Arthur’s Labyrinth’ and Corris Craft Centre tourist attraction, but has sold his share of that to Ian Rutherford, who runs the attraction.

John will continue to run his Inigo Jones slate business-cum-tourist attraction near Caernarfon but that, too, will be sold eventually.

John says he will continue to be involved with a bid to have the Welsh slate industry classified as a World Heritage Site by Unesco (see bit.ly/world-heritage-slate). “I hope to see that through,” he told NSS.

Contact details for Wincilate remain the same and David Meredith & Sons can be contacted on 01341 422269.