Whilst visiting Llandudno and travelling along the Great Orme Tramway we got off at the Half Way Station and walked round to the Great Orme Bronze Age Copper Mines. They were first discovered in 1987 and are thought to be the largest prehistoric mines in the world.
On arrival and after purchasing our tickets (£7.00 for an adult) we took a walk around the small visitor centre to get an idea about the sort of tools that would have been used in the mines – stones from the beach as hammers, animal bones as chisels – and to see what it could have looked like at the time.
We then watched a short informative video about the recent history of the excavations and with our hard hats firmly secured we headed out on our self-guided tour of the mines.
It’s easy to walk through the tunnels which are well signed and with only one route through easy to navigate. Some of the tunnels are narrow and some are sloping so make sure you wear appropriate footwear, but none are as narrow as those tunnels which are blocked off, they most probably would have been dug out by small children. The route you can take is around 200 metres and takes a little under an hour to walk through. There are 9 levels of tunnels overall but the tour only takes you down to level 2.
Once outside again we wandered along the surface paths which give you an even greater appreciation of the work that must have gone into building this mine.
It’s a really interesting place to visit and larger than we’d been expecting. You can find more photos here.
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