The Great Orme Coast


The Great Orme

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Sunny Llandudno and its magnificent limestone headland - the Great Orme.

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The white pimple on the summit used to be the optical telegraph station.

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Then it became a pub, a hotel, a golf club, radar station,

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then a hotel again.

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And now it's a welcome cafe.

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You see nothing on the Orme is exactly what you think it is.

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I've been told there's a real secret here on the Orme.

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It's an extraordinary story about a mysterious cave

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that has electrified the imagination of everyone who's seen it.

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That's my kind of story.

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Now all I've been told is that the cave is called Ogof Llech - the hiding cave -

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and that it's several hundred feet below the Orme's summit.

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My guide is local cave and mine expert Nick Jowett.

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There's no chance of our getting there by sea. I know, we tried.

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There was too big a swell for us to land.

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Plus we had to make our attempt today because the sea birds are already coming in to nest

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and there's no way we can disturb them.

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Oh, yes and that isn't a path down the slope above - it's subsidence in progress.

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Nothing for it but to enlist the help of two professional climbers and get down by rope.

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Try and keep your body over right, Neil.

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-Yeah. You coming?

-I'll wait till you're on the next rope, Neil.

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It's as every bit as unpleasant as I'd imagined!

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-You OK there?

-Yep.

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This is a heck of an afternoon's stroll, Nick!

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Slimy rocks, 100 foot above the sea - it's just dreamy.

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-Right.

-We're nearly there, Neil.

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Just scramble up into the cave.

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Oh, that's unbelievable!

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That's the last thing I was expecting!

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-It's like a little bit of Yorkminster's been picked up and stuck in this cave!

-Absolutely.

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Look at it, it's like, what, half of an eight-sided sort of...

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One, two, three, four, five sides.

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And then there's a semi-circular seat and this is like it's the upright column

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with a circular base of a stone-carved table.

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There would be, you know, a top here.

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So you could come in here and sit around, sit around a stone table!

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A round stone table, yeah.

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The interesting thing, of course, is that this is sandstone and the Great Orme's made of limestone.

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So they haven't just brought it from just outside the cave entrance,

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they've had to have been brought in from elsewhere.

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At the moment we've got no idea where the stone came from.

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Look at this as well - 1853.

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How old is it?

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-Some of the earliest graffiti is on this back wall here.

-Uh-huh.

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It looks to me like 1718.

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-What a view as well.

-Lovely view out to sea.

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-If you carry on round this, there's a lovely feature I'd like you to have a look at.

-Right.

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Lots of the old guide books tell us that there's the face of a man

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-and an owl and a swan.

-Carved faces?

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Carved into the stone here.

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I've looked on many occasions. I've certainly never seen an owl and a swan.

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But if you look up here...

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-Yes!

-I think you can make that out.

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Yes, you can the see the face. Two eyes. You can see where a nose has been.

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Some people say it's a bishop because it has a mitre.

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Other people say it's a knight with a knight's helmet.

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Other people say it's an angel, so lots of different theories

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and then people draw their own conclusions from what they think that face is.

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It's so dramatic. To me it looks like the head of a cobra.

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You wonder what's going on here. It's obviously meant so much to the person or people that did it.

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-And yet they haven't left anything behind to show why they did it.

-No.

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So it all remains a mystery.

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So who built Ogof Llech and when and why?

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The place is a complete conundrum so here's what I'm doing,

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I've sent a small sample of the sandstone away for analysis

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to see if I can find out exactly where it's from.

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One thing I can be fairly certain of, if that graffiti is reliable

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whoever built the cave's interior did so over 300 years ago.

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There must be documents or estate papers or something that can help us.

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So I've started contacting local historians and libraries

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and some interesting names are cropping up in connection with the cave.

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Charles Darwin?

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And there's also talk of an ancient Welsh poem written about the cave that has to be worth a look.

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It just looks like a little church.

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This is frustrating.

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I seem to be getting nowhere fast.

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Is there any news on the stone sample?

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Now that IS interesting.

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But at long last I DO have something positive to report.

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Do you remember this?

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Oh, that's the piece of stone that we picked from the cave.

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Well that surface there, that's where the sample has been taken.

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I sent it off to the British Geological Survey in Nottingham

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and they've got detailed records of all the known sources of stone

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and they cross-referenced it and have come back with this.

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It says the sandstone sample from Ogof Llech compares closely with sandstones from the Gwespyr Quarries

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at Talacre.

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Oh, right. OK. That's just down the coast.

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Probably about 30 miles away.

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Another interesting point from our point of view is the Talacre Quarry

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-was part of the Mostyn family estates.

-Oh, OK.

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It says the Mostyn family controlled that quarry as early as the 16th century.

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That gives us now the first hard evidence here

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which is brilliant news.

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So the sandstone sample has given us a specific connection with a family called the Mostyns.

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Who were they and what was their connection with Llandudno?

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Well, they built it - lock, stock and promenade.

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And they owned the Great Orme where the cave Ogof Llech is.

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And there's more.

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On this map of 1849, there's a clearly defined zigzagging path

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all the way to the cave.

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So for a long time, presumably, there was access to getting down there but not any more,

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hence the ropes and all the rest of the stuff that enabled Nick and I to get round there.

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Now there was that poem to Ogof Llech, and very conveniently for me...

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..on page three of the photocopy, we reveal the nicely copperplate date - 1683.

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Now allow me to translate some of this for you.

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"The cave was furnished with skill and taste for Mostyn's heir.

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"A house of rest for the bright Welshman of new walls hewn in stone."

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Get that, new walls of stone.

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"Also, when he goes to sea, he takes his boat.

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"He passes Llandudno and to fishing devotes himself."

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"Thence to the shore to his abode, the cheerful cave daintily equipped

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"Stones and curious engravings on the walls and stones serving as tables and seats

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"and a round table of hewn stone in the grotto is also preened."

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So what are we dealing with?

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What we have is a cave fitted out as some kind of fishing lodge.

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And it's something to do with the heir of the Mostyn estate

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and we've got a date -

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this is happening around 1683.

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So who was this guy, Mostyn heir?

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Well, in 1683 the lord of the manor, if you will was Roger Mostyn

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and his heir was Thomas.

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This book is a history of the Mostyns.

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And sure enough...

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Sir Thomas Mostyn.

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This is Mostyn's heir.

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For centuries Ogof Llech has excited and puzzled off who have seen it or have heard about it.

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Have we, at long last, solved the riddle of who built it and why?

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I certainly think we've uncovered a snapshot of one period in the history of this mysterious cave.

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But is there more to unravel here?

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You bet there is. Nothing in the Orme is quite what it seems.

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Subtitles by Shoma Mazumder Red Bee Media Ltd

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E-mail [email protected]

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