Dolgarrog: An industrial history

by Eric Jones, David Gwyn

From the jacket blurb: "Dolgarrog is an unusual village for North Wales. It only came into being recently - it hardly existed before 1910. It consists of an aluminium works, a hydro-electricity station and several rows of semi-detached houses which look like a fragment of suburban ribbon developmment arbitrarliy transplanted to the majestic rural setting of Dyffryn Conwy. It has a church but no chapel, and its population includes Welsh-speaking Welshmen and Welshwomen with surnames like McDonald and McMillan. This unlikely-looking community was at one time the centre of an important commercia;l empire, whose activities included not only the production of aluminium but also running a number of narrow-gauge railway, including the Festiniog, the Welsh Highland and the Snowdon, and the sale and distribution of electricity as far away as Crewe. Under the management of the enigmatic Henry Joseph Jack, it looked as if the economy and industry of North Wales was to be restructured from Dolgarrog, until, one night in 1925, the dams at Llyn Eigiau and Llyn Coedty broke. Today the works form part of the multi-national Alcan firm, remaining at the forefront of techonological development world-wide, and the village itself maintains much of its distinctive and unusual ethos, This book sets out to tell the story of that development."

193 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1989