Hotel fully booked... for rest of the year
NORTH Wales’ newest hotel has opened at a slate quarry.
The Slate Caverns in Blaenau Ffestiniog has launched the four-star, 24-bedroom Slate Mountain Lodge at a restored former mountain lodge.
The hotel only opened last week, but every room is already fully booked out for the rest of the year.
While the hotel’s location and stunning restoration will make it a hit with visitors, it is not the high demand from tourists that has seen the ‘no vacancies’ sign go up. An engineering firm engaged to carry out maintenance on Llechwedd’s hydroelectricity infrastructure will stay there until January 2020. The hotel will have a public launch in spring 2020 after a refresh to develop the hotel to fourstar status. Bookings for visitors go live later this year. For more than 150 years the restored 19th century lodge was home to the Greaves family who founded the mine at Llechwedd in the 1830s.
It commands spectacular views across the historic Llechwedd site – once one of the busiest mines in the world – and the Moelwyn mountain range.
Michael Bewick, man- aging director of The Slate Caverns, said: “The Greaves family lived at the lodge until 1970s and the building was subsequently used as offices for the mine’s managers. To bring back to life a building which played such a significant part in Welsh history is a wonderful thing.”
Already employing six, the hotel will generate 23 new jobs when it opens to the public. The £1.5m development has been part-funded by the Welsh Government.