Author Topic: YOUR FACTOIDS AND SNIPPETS HERE!  (Read 17482 times)

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Offline DaveR

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Re: YOUR FACTOIDS AND SNIPPETS HERE!
« Reply #30 on: March 18, 2011, 11:03:21 pm »
Hornby Cave on the Great Orme is the scene of the shipwreck of the brig 'Hornby' in 1824, when all on board but one perished.

Offline DaveR

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Re: YOUR FACTOIDS AND SNIPPETS HERE!
« Reply #31 on: March 18, 2011, 11:04:00 pm »
A popular boat fishing venue off the Great Orme, is the area around Austen's Rock, a large, jagged, hazardous and menacing expanse of submerged limestone pavement, only visible at low water, and named after the first keeper of the Great Orme lighthouse.


Offline DaveR

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Re: YOUR FACTOIDS AND SNIPPETS HERE!
« Reply #32 on: March 18, 2011, 11:05:11 pm »
Two similar boulders, and a crescent shaped indentation in the boulder clay form one of the more unusual and well known boat fishing marks, 'The Frog's Head.' Bearing an amazing resemblance to the head of a frog, and sited on the precipitous grassy slopes below St Tudno's Church, it is visible only from seaward. It is said, usually by boatmen, that the frog's mouth always points upward during fine weather.

Offline DaveR

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Re: YOUR FACTOIDS AND SNIPPETS HERE!
« Reply #33 on: March 18, 2011, 11:05:41 pm »
Craig-y-Don was named by the Victorian landowner Thomas Peers Williams, after his own home and estate of Craig-y-don near Beaumaris on Anglesey.

Offline DaveR

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Re: YOUR FACTOIDS AND SNIPPETS HERE!
« Reply #34 on: March 18, 2011, 11:06:34 pm »
If you take the path above the grassy parking area above St Tudno's cemetery on the Great Orme, pass Ffynnon Rhufeinig on your left, eventually you will find 'The Free Trade Loaf' to your right. This is a large boulder which resembles an old fashioned loaf of bread. In Medieval times trade bargains were struck against this boulder. The boulder is a Glacial Erratic. During the last Ice-age, the area was covered with huge glaciers, which moved over time, very slowly. As they moved, they scooped up rock and debris, like giant bulldozers. Eventually, when the glaciers melted the rocks and debris were left in-place on the landscape.

Offline DaveR

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Re: YOUR FACTOIDS AND SNIPPETS HERE!
« Reply #35 on: March 18, 2011, 11:07:55 pm »
In July 1939, the 69th Medium Regiment of the Caernarfon & Denbigh Yeomandry was formed as a Territorial Army regiment based in the Argyll Road Drill Hall in Llandudno. By May 1940, after training in St Asaph, they had just arrived at Le Harvre and marched across half of Northern France to Coutrai in Belgium when they found themselves caught up in the massive evacuation of retreating Belgian troops. They soon found themselves subjected to intensive aerial fire and suffered their first casualities. In the retreat, this lightly armed artillery regiment (who after fighting for many days, until almost without ammunition, they, under orders, had destroyed their artillery) found themselves led into an ambush at the Flanders town of Wormhout. The ambush had been laid by the notorious Wilhelm Mohnke commandant of the S.S. Regiment Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler. Just a few reached nearby Dunkirk and were among the very last to be evacuated on the Isle of Man Steam Packet vessel 'Tynwald'. All the remainder (except one who lived to tell the tale) were shot or taken prisoner and then massacred by the Germans in a barn at Esquelbec. It was two days after the massacre that a burial party of Austrian soldiers discovered Gunner Parry still alive and took him to a field hospital manned by captured members of the Royal Medical Corps, which included Staff Sergeant Eric Fernhead (a Chemist from Llandudno) who recognised Gunner Parry and nursed him back to health. Only after they had both safely returned back to Llandudno did the world learn of the massacre at Esquelbec in Wormhout on 28th May 1940. Llandudno was formally twinned with Wormhout on 14th April 1989.

Offline DaveR

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Re: YOUR FACTOIDS AND SNIPPETS HERE!
« Reply #36 on: March 18, 2011, 11:08:39 pm »
The first Victorian Turkish Baths in Wales were in a house in Llandudno named Ty Aildro, built in 1864 by the Llandudno Turkish & General Bath Co Ltd. It had facilities for six bathers.

Offline DaveR

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Re: YOUR FACTOIDS AND SNIPPETS HERE!
« Reply #37 on: March 18, 2011, 11:09:24 pm »
St Tudno was a saint of the Celtic Church and belonged to that period of the British Church famed for missionary zeal. he was the son of a chieftain of considerable power and wealth, who lived early in the 6th century, and was sometimes called Seithenyn Feddw  - Seithenyn the Drunken - associated with  the legendary drowned city of Cardigan Bay.

Offline Trojan

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Re: YOUR FACTOIDS AND SNIPPETS HERE!
« Reply #38 on: March 19, 2011, 02:08:39 am »
The Farman biplane piloted by Robert Loraine, landed safely about 100 yards from the club-house on Rhos-on-Sea Golf Course, Penrhyn Bay, Llandudno, on August 1 1910 and was the first airplane to land in Wales. Robert, aged 34, flew from Blackpool, and completed a record-breaking over-sea flight. (63 miles).

Here's a photo of the biplane on the golf course at Penrhyn Bay.

Offline Trojan

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Re: YOUR FACTOIDS AND SNIPPETS HERE!
« Reply #39 on: March 19, 2011, 02:11:25 am »
If you take the path above the grassy parking area above St Tudno's cemetery on the Great Orme, pass Ffynnon Rhufeinig on your left, eventually you will find 'The Free Trade Loaf' to your right. This is a large boulder which resembles an old fashioned loaf of bread. In Medieval times trade bargains were struck against this boulder. The boulder is a Glacial Erratic. During the last Ice-age, the area was covered with huge glaciers, which moved over time, very slowly. As they moved, they scooped up rock and debris, like giant bulldozers. Eventually, when the glaciers melted the rocks and debris were left in-place on the landscape.

The Free Trade Loaf.

Offline Trojan

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Re: YOUR FACTOIDS AND SNIPPETS HERE!
« Reply #40 on: March 19, 2011, 02:17:38 am »
Testo Reaction Meters were wall mounted novelty machines produced in the 1950's & 60's by Arthur Brown, a T.V. and radio repair man who ran Browns T.V. & Radio in Mostyn St, and also Deganwy Swimming Pool. The machines were placed in pubs and clubs all over North Wales and the North West of England. You had to place a coin in a slot at the top of the machine which lit-up a red coloured light. You then pressed a green button, and the light would go out after a few seconds. After the light went out you had to react quickly by pressing a red button to stop a sliding scale on the front of the machine from dropping too far. If you reacted quickly enough your coin was returned, but the chances of this happening diminished as the evening progressed. The main purpose of the machines were to deter drunk-driving, as reaction times when behind the wheel increase as more alcohol is consumed. There was also a picture of a lorry approaching a zebra crossing on the front of the machine.

 :)

Offline Trojan

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Re: YOUR FACTOIDS AND SNIPPETS HERE!
« Reply #41 on: March 19, 2011, 02:20:31 am »
Llandudno's oldest post-box is situated in St Georges Crescent outside the Queens Hotel. It is of the hexagonal style designed by John Penfold in 1866 and is still in regular use.

 :)

Offline Trojan

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Re: YOUR FACTOIDS AND SNIPPETS HERE!
« Reply #42 on: March 19, 2011, 02:25:35 am »
St Paul's Church on Mostyn Broadway, Craig-y-don, was built in 1893/95 as a memorial to Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence.

 :)

Offline Trojan

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Re: YOUR FACTOIDS AND SNIPPETS HERE!
« Reply #43 on: March 19, 2011, 02:28:51 am »
There is a suburb of Cape Town, South Africa named Llandudno after our famous Welsh resort. In Llandudno South Africa, there is a beach called Sandy Bay - Cape Town's nudist beach!

Sandy Bay, Llandudno. S.A.

Offline Trojan

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Re: YOUR FACTOIDS AND SNIPPETS HERE!
« Reply #44 on: March 19, 2011, 02:37:58 am »
Llandudno's first seafront hotel was the St George's. It was built in 1884.

1854 actually, by Isaiah Davies.

It's "remoteness" to any built up area was such that the deeds refer to the original plot of land which it was built on as being near to the village of Llandudno.