He was a bad man. Thomas Jones. Manager of the slate quarry. 1824.
But he was popular with most of the workers. Although not all of them. For he had a reputation with the women. Their girlfriends and their wives. But he was a man of importance and in his own time also earned a place in history. For he was the man who standardised and catalogued the size and specification of slates for marketing and supply purposes worldwide.
His house at the Plas near Dorothea Quarry in the Nantlle valley sat in an idyllic deciduous woodland that sprang up amongst the slate heaps. A narrow road, hemmed in by tall stone walls, led through sunny glades to it from the tramway. With his standing he dictated that the dirty slate workers were forbidden from walking that way but their tidier womenfolk were allowed to take afternoon strolls past the house.
Starved of sunshine through long cold, wet and grey winters Thomas Jones took to setting up office outside in the summertime when it was warm and dry. A plain wooden table and office chair was placed in the small yard in front of the house upon which he could deal with his papers. He had a naturally charming manner about him and there was nothing more that he liked than to be distracted from his work whenever he noticed a pretty woman walk by. He would easily engage in small talk with them. It took his mind off the thousands of rectangles of grey slate he saw every day.
Business was good too. The industrial revolution was causing a house and factory building explosion across the world. Demand increased exponentially year upon year as Welsh slate was recognised as the best. But each market had different requirements in slate proportions. Some standards were required to ensure uniformity of product and he struggled for a way to label them.
He was musing over methods to grade the slate, outside one afternoon, when a particularly attractive young lady walked by, turning her face to give a rather brazen smile as she went. He stood up from his chair and tipped his hat as he greeted her with, "Afternoon, Ma'am". Apparently it was all the signal she needed and she pushed open the gate to join him at the front of the house. Clearly a go-getter she knew how to seduce him with some coy looks and some practiced postures that showed off her curves provocatively. The talk soon turned sassy, their eyes alive with enthusiasm for each other and it wasn't long before he suggested it would be more relaxing to go inside to chat. Inevitably it could only lead to one thing.
It was the next day that he was checking the quality of a large slate. He checked the dimensions with a wooden folding ruler. Twenty four by fourteen inches it measured, precisely. It had been finely split and edged he noted as he held it vertically, face to him between his palms. And he thought,....distracted for a moment, last time his palms were that far apart they were holding the young lady's bare waist close to him the afternoon before. And he smiled to himself at the thought, remembering he had whispered "Princess" to her in her ear as they indulged in some foreplay.
And that was it...! He grinned at the thought! He would name the different sizes of slates after women. The 24 by 14 incher would be a Princess. He was sure the idea would be a winner with the men in the quarry.
It was only two days later that he bedded another woman. Slightly larger, older and better educated. It led him to name the 26 by 16 inch slate an Empress. And the die was set. Through the summer he took his chances liberally. There was a truly shapely, fine young lady, glorious ginger hair. He reckoned he should call the 24 by 12 inch slate after her: the Duchess. She was class! One Sunday he was introduced to a visiting foreign lady he nicknamed the Marchioness after an entertaining session upstairs. She was diminutive and he gave her name to the 18 by 9 inch slate.
Soon he was getting so cocky no woman was safe, married or single, and he would seduce his victims with an easy charm. There was the Viscountess, significantly older than him, but with eye-widening experience and technique that made him put the title to the 18 by 9 inch tile. And there were the two sisters he spent the night with after the village carnival. They became the Broad Countess and the Small Countess 20 by 12 and 20 by 10 inches respectively. It was they who were the first to throw their underwear up into the branches of the tree outside the front of his house.
But Thomas Jones, Tom as he became known, was headed for trouble. Word eventually seeped out beyond the boundaries of the quarry. The gossip spread. He became despised by some of the men. Not least General Hugh Warburton of Penrhyn who stole the slate naming idea as his own. And especially when the worker's women started to stray towards his house to offer themselves as easy victims. But whilst he romped he treated some with disdain to the degree that his catalogue of slates inspired by them included the Wide Lady, the Broad Lady, the Wide Header, the Small Header, the Small Lady, etc, etc. They just became a commodity to him.
And one day he disappeared completely.
I became interested in slate and its industry many years ago, as I have mentioned elsewhere here, but it was seeing this house for the first time, that prompted me to dig into its history. And once I turned up this story I had to go back for a closer look. It really is a special place, derelict and overgrown, magical and mysterious, hidden in a tangle of ivy in a dark, silent corner of the quarry. Approaching it, it feels creepy and I was tempted to look over my shoulder a few times. On one occasion my eyes caught a glimpse of colour on the fallen tree at the front, a remnant of fabric snagged on a broken branch. Intrigued I reached for it and pulled it down, my fingers rubbing some of the leafy greenness to expose even more red satiny fabric. Underwear, I wondered? I put the piece in my pocket and crossed to the ornate porch and doorway. looking in I could see the floor was littered with rusty brown leaves from the previous autumn, but otherwise it was empty. Nothing to see. and so I went round to the left of the house into the small dark area at its side, and untidy part with creeping ivy and brambles, a carpet of bright moss on the floor. Again there was little to see apart from a small stack of cut slates stood on edge against the far wall. They were so neatly stood it made me notice how precisely cut they were to...perfectly rectangular, but all slightly different proportions. I picked the first up to examine how perfectly thin and flat it was, holding it up to the weak light, marvelling at the workmanship, turning it this way and that to admire it more closely.
And then I noticed it was engraved. Clearly cut in in Ecuyer dax font was the word "Empress". I couldn't believe it! Hurriedly I reached down for the next slate in the stack and turned it over when I saw there was no name on the front. "Duchess!". The next, "Small Countess". I dropped to my knees and urgent flipped slate after slate. Princess, Marchioness, Wide Lady, Broad Lady, Wide Header, Narrow Lady...…..Duchess, Viscountess…and so on. I counted nineteen slates so far. That's the whole list! His original samples all preserved.
But one slate remained propped up against the wall. A good sized one, perhaps 22 x 10 inches. I reached to pick it up, baffled. There should only be nineteen different names and sizes. Curious, I turned it over to see if the twentieth was engraved too.
It was. The "Unforgiving Mistress"
Well, this threw me. What? Why? Or did the answer lie in Tom Jones' own chequered history? What had he got up to? And why had he suddenly disappeared.? The thought unsettled me in that creepy place and I decided to get up from where I knelt. As I put out a leg to lever myself up, I leant to the left. As I did so the heel of my boot scuffed the moss aside where it lay on a slab of slate below. Another push with my boot and a whole roll of moss just peeled away revealing even more of the dark grey slab underneath. I got up and stood looking down. It made me uneasy. Something was lurking down there. And I thought I knew what it was. Had he perhaps crossed the unforgiving mistress? And she had put him in his grave?
What I was to discover next would rock the Nantlle Valley. Part Two, soon.
