Great Orme Mines

06/09/2026

🫐It’s that time of year when we start to see blackberries in abundance along hedgerows and verges, just like these I snapped a picture of growing beside a road in Llandudno.

Native to the UK, blackberries have been part of the human diet for thousands of years, with our ancestors foraging for them as an important source of food. During an archaeological dig at Walton-on-the-Naze in Essex, blackberry seeds were recovered from the stomach of a prehistoric male.

Given how abundant they are at this time of year, I can imagine Bronze Age miners grabbing a quick handful from similarly plentiful bushes to help keep them going through a hard day’s work underground.

It’s easy to look at the landscape around us today whilst forgetting just how much of it would have been a valuable food source for the people who lived here thousands of years ago.

05/09/2026

Thanks! It was wonderful to welcome you back to site! See you again soon!

05/09/2026

🔍 Another piece from our shop and another blue mineral to guess at!

Today’s piece comes from Brazil.

Hint: known for its pearly blue blade like crystals it can also form in colours of orange, green, grey, black, white and occasionally pink. Its name comes from the Greek word “kyanos” meaning blue as named by German geologist Abraham Gottlob Werner in 1789.

🤔 Any ideas?

04/09/2026

🔬 Today we welcomed Matt Bainbridge and Mike Woods from Monolith Archaeology, Ben Edwards from Manchester Metropolitan University alongside Sue and Dave Chapman of Ancient Arts.

Matt and Mike have been at the mine carrying out XRF analysis and 3D scanning of artefacts, while Ben Edwards from Manchester Metropolitan University has been carrying out XRF analysis using a specialist XRF scanner.

It’s fascinating to see how modern technology can help us learn more about artefacts recovered from Great Orme.

Watch this space!

04/09/2026

04/09/2026

🤔 It’s hard to imagine now, looking at the rolling hills of Great Orme Country Park, just how industrial this landscape once was.

From 1600–1400 BC (around 3,600–3,400 years ago), this mine was where Britain’s first mining boom took place. Copper from Great Orme was supplying places as far away as Sweden and Norway! Comprehending this amount of trade, in a time thousands of years before modern travel conveniences, really does highlight the ingenuity of our Bronze Age ancestors and how important the mine was in their lives.

Not just a place of prehistoric boom, in 1837 (A.D.) around 300 men are recorded as working at the mines. For a small village, as the town was then, this number really highlights how industrial Great Orme was and what a large industry the town’s mines were. The Llandudno copper mines in the 19th century “proved a source of great wealth to a great number of individuals”* and put Llandudno on the map long before it became a seaside resort.

*Llandudno Advertiser

03/09/2026

🔍 Guess the mineral!

Today’s Guess the Mineral is another piece from our shop and this type of mineral has its place in Great Orme Bronze Age mining history!

Hint: Alongside malachite this blue copper carbonate was also found and mined at the Great Orme thousands of years ago and if you’ve walked the famous tunnels at our site you might have seen it on the walls. This particular specimen came from Morocco and its name is connected to the Persian word “lazhward” meaning blue.

Any ideas? 🤔

02/09/2026

🏫⛏️Back to school and back to the Bronze Age!

With many schools going back this week, we’ve got availability for autumn school field trips at Great Orme Mines!

One of the great things about our site is how well it fits into the Key Stage 2 History curriculum, the study of “Changes in Britain from the Stone Age to the Iron Age.” But here at Great Orme Mines, pupils don’t just learn about our ancestors, they get to experience the world they lived in.

They can see the tools Bronze Age miners used, walk through tunnels carved in the headland by children as young as five years old and learn about Great Orme mines' place in European prehistory.

It’s a fantastic way to bring Bronze Age history to life, whether you’re planning a school trip or a home education visit.

For further details follow the link in the comments.

01/09/2026

😊An enormous thank you to all of our summer holiday visitors!

We’ve really enjoyed having you all on site and we’re so grateful that you chose to make the Bronze Age mine part of your summer 2026 memories! This matters so much to us as your ticket and shop purchases help fund this project and allow us to keep looking after this incredible place and sharing it with visitors summer on summer.

And thank you to everyone who has shared your photographs with us too. We’ve loved seeing the mine through your eyes, and these are just a few of our favourite photos from this summer! Please drop your own in the comments!

Remember, we’re open every day until the end of October, so if you haven’t visited us yet we’d love to see you!

📸: Lynn
📸: Charlotte
📸: Miss
📸: Jennie
📸: Colin

31/08/2026

⌛3,700 years of history in one view!

I love this photo by our visitor Curtis of the Opencast here at Great Orme Mines.

This huge cavity, with the spaces between the pillars beneath the bridge, was created by Bronze Age miners extracting copper ore from the hillside. The green copper ore malachite exposed at the surface must have been a striking sight when Bronze Age miners first arrived here around 1,700 BC (3,700 years ago). This was more than 1,700 years before the Roman invasion in AD 43!

For me, that really puts the incredible scale of time into perspective. Standing here, you’re looking at a landscape shaped by people who lived thousands of years ago, long before Roman conquest of Britain.

Almost 3,700 years of human history and industry, right here at Great Orme Mines.