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Ancient monument

Great Orme Copper Mines

Llandudno, Conwy

Miles of Bronze Age tunnels dug with bone and stone.

The Great Orme headland is laced with copper ore. In the Bronze Age, miners followed the green veins deep into the hill using nothing but stone hammers and tools of bone and antler.

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When
Bronze Age
Where
53.3300, -3.8500
Group
Circles & monuments

Visiting

The Great Orme Mines are open to visitors in season.

Cover of The Ledger of Lost Britain by Cale Mills
From the book

The Ledger of Lost Britain

There was no iron, no gunpowder and no pump. They followed the green veins into the hill by hand.

The Romans arrived in AD 43. For most people that is where the history of Britain begins. But by the time the legions landed, people had already been living on these islands for thousands of years. They had hunted, farmed, mined flint, dragged stones across the country, raised a hill by hand, and buried their dead in great tombs. They left no written words. What they left was the ground itself. Every place in this book can be visited, or has been dug up, or is in a museum.

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