Exploring the dangerous landscape of ‘Wales’ Grand Canyon’
IN North Wales there is a huge landmark to Wales’ industrial past that one adventurer described as “Wales’ grand canyon”.
A huge gouge was taken out of Parys Mountain in Anglesey 200 years ago as millions of tonnes of rock were excavated, by hand, to retrieve copper ore to fuel the Welsh metal-smelting industry.
The hole left behind is not only a permanent monument to the brave men who worked the mines at Parys Mountain in the late 18th Century, but a truly spectacular and breathtaking sight as well.
Will Millard explored Parys Mountain and the mine shafts beneath it recently for the BBC Wales documentary series Hidden Wales.
However, there are few physical reminders left of that boom era of
Welsh industry, in which Parys Mountain became the largest copper mine in the world.
As well as the vast 200 feet-high man-made chasm on the surface, Parys Mountain has hidden secrets below the surface that few people get to see.
The only way in to the tunnels are the original wooden 18th-century ladders used by the miners during the boom years for copper mining there.
Pools of sulphuric acid filled with iron ore are one of the many hazards in the mines and the wooden ladders are often dangerous, with explorers instead using the solid rock for a foothold as they dangle above the blackness of the mine shaft below. Some of the shafts go down 900 feet and were mined using hand shovels and wheelbarrows by men whose only light was a candle on their cap.
Incredibly, the history of mining goes much farther back than 200 years at Parys Mountain, and Bronze Age stone tools from around 4,000 years ago still litter the mine.
At his death in 1802, the owner of the mine Thomas Williams was the richest man in Wales. The mine supplied copper ore to the smelting works in Swansea, which became famous as “copperopolis” and a world-leader in the metal industry.