The Great Orme (appears to) rise above the hill fort Dinas Allt-Wen... viewed – with optical assistance – from Tal-y-Fan.
Image credit: Robert Gladstone
Sites in Great Orme and its Environs
Images
I can’t resist this. A modern stone circle at the foot of Great Orme, in a place aptly named “Happy valley”. :)
Image credit: Graham Orriss
Articles
The 5,000 yr old skeleton found on the Little Orme by quarrymen 123 yrs ago finally comes home to Llandudno and will be the centre of a major exhibition in April.
dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/blodwen-skeleton-returns-north-wales-8655319
A bit of Great Orme insanity (which gives a taste of the terrain):
This mountain appearing, at a distance, like a rock in the sea, is a peninsular, nearly circular, about four miles in circumference[..]
.. [the precipice] is some hundred yards above the [sea], and in many places is almost perpendicular, against which the sea is always beating, making a hideous noise, so that it is really shocking to be near the declivity [..]
We left our horses at one of the cottages under the mount, and ascended the hill on foot, which is about a mile to the top; to have rode up was impracticable. We marched on, sometimes over barren rocks, and rubbish out of the copper mines, which lies there in great plenty [..]
By this time we were got very near the summit, which was very steep, but covered with the same green turf [very lush, and which supports the ‘sweetest mutton in Wales’] [..] Being arrived at the top of the hill or highest point of the Peninsula, we sat down to refresh ourselves, being a little fatigued with clambering up. We had rum and fruit in our pockets [..]
It remained to know the most expeditious way to descend, which was this-- we lay flat on our backs, and slided down at a great rate; the natives have a more expeditious way than this. When they have a mind to descend a mountain with speed, they fix their backs upon a flat kind of stone, holding the forepart fast with both the hands, betwixt the legs; then giving a spring, away they go, at the rate of a mile in a minute or more, according as the descent is. This is called “riding the stone-horse.”
p74 in ‘Notes of Family Excursions in North Wales’, by J. O. Halliwell, 1860. Online at Google Books
I’ve not yet visited the Great Orme, but according to Gwynedd Archaeological Trust records there’s a prehistoric hut circle north of Pyllau Road (SH77258305). I’ve no idea what kind of access there is to the site, or how much evidence remains on the ground.
There are two other possible hut circles to the south east (one at SH77498300 and the other at SH77358321). One of these looks like it has a public footpath running past it.
