Inigo JonesSlate Works

Inigo Jones Slate Works has cut and finished Welsh slate at Y Groeslon, south of Caernarfon, since 1861, when it was set up to prefabricate school writing slates. As demand for writing slates fell the firm moved into slate electrical panels, and today it produces architectural, memorial, lettered and craft pieces from stone quarried across North Wales. It is among the last fully working slate workshops in the region. Visitors can follow a self-guided route past the sawing, planing and polishing shops before reaching the showroom, where house signs, clocks, coasters, worktops and gifts are sold, and the site offers calligraphy and slate-engraving demonstrations. Run by Inigo Jones and Co Ltd from this single Gwynedd works, it pairs a working craft business with a visitor centre that records the area's slate trade.