What a difference a week makes. Llinos and I took a walk up Llanfair mountains last week and although the wind was calm near the foot of the mountain as we climbed higher it became very stong, my ears were so cold I was getting that headachy feeling, we put our hoods up but soon realised our efforts were pointless and so unable to hear a word each other was saying and getting blown all over the show we called it a day and walked back down to the car and decided to go to the Penmaenmawr museum instead. There is an abundance of information on the Quarry and of course the Graiglwyd Axe Factories, Druid Circle etc and glass cases filled with various finds such as stone age knives and other artifacts but surprisingly scarcely nothing on Braich Y Dinas. Nobody seems to know where the Urns found by Harold Hughes have been sent and he found over 20 if I remember rightly. One of the Urns I have since been told was on display for donkey years in a glass case at the Grand Hotel but no sign of it now or where it went sadly.
An old school teacher of mine Mr Dennis Roberts is the local historian for Penmaenmawr and Llinos and I got very excited when the curator in the Pen Museum informed us that Mr Roberts and fellow historians had rescued old victorian papers relating to the Quarry from a cellar in the old Darbyshires cellar in 2004 all these papers were available to view in the Llandudno Archives. So next stop the Archives, unfortunately these papers were of no interest to us as they contained information on wages and accounts from that era.
It's such a shame that such an important structure which covered a vast area over Penmaenmawr and Llanfair has not been documented in full or if it has it's incredibly hard to find.
Below are some old photos taken from an aeroplane in 1924 showing the zig zag path that lead up and through the huge fortress. The last picture is of Harold Hughes who excavated Braich y Dinas but due to the onset of the Quarry was very pushed for time it was loaned to me by Rob Pritchard who says he has a folder full but is unable to locate them at the moment as he's moving house.