Working quarry. Do not enter.*

Massive untopping has followed the northward dip of the strata, obliterating inclines, tunnels, mills, and most buildings. The resulting modern pit exposes some of the historic underground chambering. The 1800-era workings to the south lie buried beneath tipping debris, leaving only a powder house and a fine keyhole-type underground powder store. This keyhole design is exceptionally rare; while several vestiges exist locally, including a tiny example at Cae’r Gors, no other full-sized example is known.

The cascade of inclines remains the site’s most striking feature. The topmost drum house displays a notable wind-shield wall, deliberately positioned to protect the incline top from severe weather. A modern road cuts across this incline near the 1930s adit, which was driven both to drain the underground chambers and to provide potential future access. Little survives of the mill complex at Lefel Dŵr Oer beyond the gas-engine base and mill ponds, though the shorter second incline retains remains of a small hydro-generator house. The magnificent third incline descending to road level still displays several wrecked wagons alongside it, including Great Western Railway examples.

A distinctive feature of the site was the “Wild Car,” a passenger conveyance used by quarry workers descending the inclines until the 1940s. Contemporary accounts describe children riding on their fathers’ laps and sometimes two or three men sharing a single car.

Manod quarry received substantial investment in 1801, marked by the construction of a high-quality road. In its early period, the operation was partly run in common with Moelwyn and remained relatively unimportant until absorbing Graig Ddu in the 1840s. For many years, the quarry faced a significant logistical disadvantage: unable to reach the Ffestiniog Railway, it relied on road transport and boating down the Dwyryd, making Manod the last major quarry to continue this traditional shipping method.

The situation changed dramatically with the opening of the 2’ gauge Ffestiniog and Blaenau Railway. An incline system constructed in 1865 allowed loaded quarry trucks to travel directly to Porthmadog. After the Great Western Railway absorbed the F&BR in 1883, quarry trucks were carried piggyback on standard-gauge wagons to Blaenau, streamlining the transport process further.

Chronic water shortages on site during the 1880s led to the establishment of a mills complex at Lefel Dŵr Oer, positioned at the foot of the upper incline. Water reached the mills through streams from the north and from Llyn y Manod to the south, pumped by a water-wheel-powered system. The milling operation employed innovative engineering: one mill utilised a fully buried wheel fed through a tunnel, while two additional mills drew power from a partly buried wheel driving shafting beneath them. By the 1900s, the main wheel had been replaced by a producer-gas engine, modernising the facility. Across the site, more than 30 saw tables operated, including three Hunter saws, alongside a similar number of dressing machines. A redundant quarry mill at Dŵr Oer was repurposed as a workers’ barracks.

Production figures from 1882 show an output of 3,140 tons with a workforce of 110 men. Underground working commenced in the 1920s, and the quarry closed in the 1940s, though small-scale activity continued afterward. In the 1980s, the quarry underwent untopping in conjunction with Bwlch y Slaters.