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Product name	Gazeteer of Slate Quarrying in Wales
Publisher	Llygad Gwalch, 2007, ISBN 978-1-84524-074-5
Price range	£8.95
Rated

Full Review

Gazeteer of Slate Quarrying in Wales
Author: Alun John Richards
Publisher: Llygad Gwalch, 2007
ISBN 978-1-84524-074-5

After what seems an eternity, the new Gazetteer has now been published, the first revision since 1991 of the 'Gazeteer of the Welsh Slate Industry', an essential part of the (north) Wales mine explorer's library. There wasn’t much wrong with the original, although a reprint was certainly needed as the original had become hard to find.

A preliminary niggle is that the spelling of the word 'gazeteer' is not the preferred version: it's probably semantics rather than substance, but all the same, the dictionary says ‘gazetteer’.

Although the new edition is noticeably thicker, that's basically the result of reformatting the book in a larger typeface. Overall, it's essentially the same, with the original maps still difficult to comprehend, even though they have been smartened up. Some further improvement of the maps would have been nice, such as more detailed topographic features, but it's not the end of the world.

On the positive side, there's now an index at the back: this corrects one of the greatest failings of the last edition and makes navigating a lot easier; there have been some updates with additional historic information; and there are now indicators in the chapter index for the size and archaeological importance of sites, although the latter does seems a bit arbitrary.

Unfortunately, the improvements are more than countered by changes for the worse. The main problem comes with content - and in particular the remains sections. For example, in the original book, Cwmorthin had six main paragraphs and it now has four, which have been pared back to the bone. Even with the increased font size taking up more room, the physical space taken up is less.

Worse still, there's now no mention that Cwmorthin's underground workings remain accessible: it's as if Health and Safety has decreed that potentially dangerous remains shouldn’t be mentioned. Similarly, there’s no mention that Bowydd once had considerable underground workings: it seems bizarre that a gazetteer can have such obvious oversights.

One of the improvements, the index, appears to have come at the expense of the glossary of terms, an utterly inexplicable omission: any newcomer reading the book may well wonder what a sinc, a pelton wheel, a blondin – or even an adit is.

Just when you think it couldn't get any worse, four of the five south Wales maps are now missing: there is now one map with 14 mines indicated on it, while the other 107 mines have no map to indicate where they are, even though they have map reference numbers! And then, finally, there's usual Llygad Gwalch (Gwasg Carreg Galch) absence of proofreading, although we have indeed come to expect that.

So, in summary: anyone who's considering the Gazetteer might be best advised to see if they can find the 1991 edition rather than the new one. Although this edition has gained an index, the maps are still lamentable, the content is noticeably reduced and there are some substantive errors. Even saying that, it remains a very useful reference source, albeit it’s not the improvement it should have been.