Geograph - photograph every grid square

The low embankment in front of the fence is the route of the Nantlle Tramway. This horse-drawn narrow gauge railway opened in 1828, to bring slate from the Nantlle quarries down to the Slate Quay at Caernarfon. The section from Pant, through Bontnewydd and almost to Penygroes closed in 1867, when it was replaced by a standard gauge railway. The new railway took a straighter line than the older tramway, so many of the Nantlle embankments remain, curving to and from what is now the Welsh Highland Railway and Lon Eifion. They are clearly shown on the large-scale OS maps surveyed in the 1880s.