Animation of a Rare Steam Engine by the Atlanterra Project

The Component Parts of the Steam Engine at the National Slate Museum, Llanberis

As part of the Atlanterra Project, a rare steam engine is being reassembled and brought back to life using a computer animation. Investigator Spencer Smith has photographed the pieces of the steam engine which formerly powered a slate mill at Pen-y-Bryn Quarry, Nantlle (NPRN 33674) in Gwynedd, and are stored at the National Slate Museum in Llanberis.

The steam engine was probably built by the Mather Company and has some embellishments, suggesting that it was built to power something more prestigious before it found its way to the Nantlle Valley in the late 1850s.

The next stage is to record all the component parts of the engine, comparing them to a reconstruction drawing by the artist Falcon Hildred, in order to understand how the engine worked. This information will then be passed to the animation company commissioned to carry out the work, and will be available for the public to view by the summer of 2012.


Subscribe to the Heritage of Wales News and sign up for the full feed RSS, just click this RSS button and subscribe!

Also find us on:
Twitter Hashtag: #RCAHMWales