Inigo Jones Slate Works was founded in 1861 primarily to prefabricate school writing slates, when school writing slates were replaced by paper the company had to find new products. The owner at the time, Hugh Jones, started producing electrical panels in slate. These proved to be very popular and the company rapidly expanded, sourcing its slate from the whole of North Wales.
The slate was enamelled and this was a slow laborious process as the slate had to be baked in ovens for over 48 hours. Thousands of electrical slate panels were produced at Inigo Jones', Tudor Slate Works. The world famous Queen Mary, Mauritania and the Queen Elizabeth luxury liners all had panels from these works. The original slate panels supplied to the Queen Mary can still be seen in Long Beach, California where the liner is now a tourist attraction.
As other cheaper man made products replaced slate for electrical panels the company diversified into slate fireplaces, the majority of these fireplaces were enamelled and many of them also included hand painted local scenes. An original fireplace supplied in the late 19th century is currently on display as part the company's self guided tour.
Over the years the company has supplied slate memorials and it still continues to do so. Technology has moved on however, and letters are now either machine cut or sand blasted as this is far quicker than the traditional hand letter cutting.
More recently the company has supplied more slate for domestic use and these include such things as flooring, kitchen work tops and hearths. Also for the home, craft products have proved popular and these include such things as wall plaques, clocks, lamps, wine racks, place mats and mirrors. The company's newest product is slate speakers and slate speaker stands and the latter especially have proved very popular as they can be made to order for any type of speaker and considerably improve the sound quality.
