Great Orme Mines

The Great Orme Mines is decent if you're looking for something to do around North Wales. You put your hard hat on and descend down a narrow, winding tunnel, into one of the largest prehistoric copper mine ever discovered. The self‑guided route is brilliantly laid out, with clear information boards explaining how Bronze Age miners worked here. The visitor centre is a nice touch, with an introductory film, artefacts and models that bring the history and archaeology to life for both adults and kids. It’s an easy 45‑minute to one‑hour loop and slightly eerie, with friendly staff on hand to answer questions. If you’re anywhere near Llandudno or heading up the Great Orme, this is worth a stop.

Great place to visit near halfway station on great omre tramway. Excellent informative friendly staff. Go around visitor centre and read history about mine and pick up your hard hat. Then venture into bronze age mine entrance go down 35 steps. Throughout tour a number of boards with information about the mine and working conditions. Really unique tour well worth visiting. Able to walk around outdoor area of mine. Gift shop has lots of unique rocks etc. Nice friendly informative staff.

This place is a great attraction, the whole experience was very enjoyable. We visited on a Sunday mid September and it wasn’t overly busy. The staff were really nice, friendly and talkative. The layout from the car park, shop/entrance to the mines is well laid out. When you go into the attraction you get a hard hat and can take your time going through the experience, roughly 40 minutes to an hour but there is no rush. There is lots of history and information about the history of the mines and people that worked there and it that was fascinating to read, there is a short video presentation you can choose to watch which gave more insight into the history. You get to walk round the open quarry site and venture into the mines. It’s a self guided tour/walk and as others have stated and I’ll confirm it is narrow with low ceilings in places, this adds to the experience in a good way (unless you’re claustrophobic). There is lighting in the mine which highlights the natural features, but I would advise a good torch to see into the dark areas not lit, not necessary but again this added to our experience in a good way.

Great place for bronze age history experience. Narrow road to good car park. Excellent explanation on walls before decending into caves. Toilets fine and picnic tables available.

A fantastic experience. The mines are awesome, so much history! Prehistory really! Bronze age people living in Britain centuries before the Romans. And the whole thing is being run by lovely people. Highly recommended.

We visited with our 7 year old son and we all enjoyed it. The staff are fantastic, knowledgeable, and super enthusiastic. The mines have been made accessible for walking but be ready to crouch at a handful of points! Such an important discovery that made my jaw drop open upon reaching the largest part of the mine. Truly incredible to walk in the footsteps of humans from 4,000 years ago! My son was given a fun questionnaire to complete along the walk. At the end he recieved a little gift for completing it. I really loved this and so did he! There are videos on repeat at certain points and they are very clear and easy to understand. You can see how much care has been put into this. The gift shop and 2nd hand book shop is also excellent. There is a mixture of cheaper and more expensive gifts. The drive up and down is rather steep and narrow at points but no problem if you're used to driving on hills. We arrived early and the car park was easy to use. There is also a tram and cable car going up the hill / mountain so they are great options too.

The people in the ticket office/gift shop are very friendly and helpful. My mum wasn't sure if she wanted to go into the mine, but they explained you can take your time and there is cctv throughout so they know you are safe. We collected our hard hats (nice pink ones!) and watched an informative film before walking down to the mine entrance. The mine tunnels are quite narrow, and some areas have low ceilings. There are information boards to read as you go through. My mum found it interesting and was glad she went in. She gave the staff a wave when she saw one of the cameras! After exploring the mine tunnels, you can have a look around the outside exhibits and take a look at the mine from above. When we handed back our hard hats, we had a lovely chat with the staff and a look around the gift shop. A very enjoyable visit, we travelled there on the Tram it's a short walk from the half-way station. They also have free parking if you travel by car

Lived near here most of my life and never been. We had friends over so decided to give it a try and was impressed. It's not massive but very interesting. You do go down some narrow passages though so not for everyone. But gives a great insight to how things were done and how small the places they worked was. Great value for money

Unfortunately the ads and brochures for the Great Orme Copper Mine looked a little too much like an amusement for young children. I wasn't really sure whether we'd enjoy making a detour to see this place, but I was greatly surprised and delighted that we did. Perhaps I should have read the brochure more carefully... the site is an active archeological site containing some of the oldest mines in the world. Copper has been mined here for more than 3,000 years, well before the Romans came. It was hard work - the miners used hard stones to extract copper ore from the rocks, in narrow, small tunnels with very little light. Thousands of stone hammers have been recovered from the tunnels. The mines were discovered during an archeological investigation for a proposed parking lot up on Great Orme, making an excellent case for the requirement to do some archeology before construction projects begin. The discovery of the mines meant that history books needed to be rewritten. The small museum contains exhibits explaining the details of the mine and the cultural and historical context. After a video explaining the site, grab a hard hat and walk through a small portion of the ancient mines. The whole experience takes an hour or two. Well worth a detour for anyone interested in pre-Roman history whether you had kids with you or not.

The Great Orme mines are the Worlds Largest Bronze Age Copper Mines. This tourist attraction is a self guided tour through the maze of tunnels and carverns that were created over 3000 years ago. The mines were discovered fairly recently, late 80's if I remeber correctly. In my opinion the Mines are one of those places that you'll visit once and never go back to - whilst the tour is both interesting and Educational it lacks excitement and for me it didnt have the WOW factor. For example having been to a similiar attraction the Chedder Gorge in Somerset (which was excellent) it didnt live up to my expectations - the lighting in the Carverns were a little dull and the lack of a Guide meant that you were just wandering aimlessley around the exhibits without really understanding why they were there. On a more positive note I think that continuous work is being carried out to develop the mines so it would be nice if they could spend a bit more money on the attraction to make it more impressive. There is also a Shop, visitor centre and a small cafe, which serves nice Cakes and Coffees. The Mines have ample Parking and the centre is open daily between the months of March and November. The Adult price is £6 - Children are £4 - but they do offer discounts for group bookings.

A visit to Great Orme Mines is both an enjoyable and educational experience which can be enjoyed by children and adults of all ages. Walking through tunnels mined out over 3,500 years ago gives visitors a feel for the harsh conditions our prehistoric ancestors faced in their search for copper. The highlight of the tour is the amazing Bronze Age Cavern, dug out over 3,500 years ago by miners using nothing more than stone and bone tools.

I enjoyed my 2 visits and over the years have watched as they unearth more and more of the mines. This place overturned years of history and gobsmacked many historians. Go visit and go underground.

This mine is definitely worth a visit. My doubting 13-year old was converted as soon as we entered the caves. The tunnels are fascinating (make sure you have suitable footwear some sections are steep and quite slippy). Gift shop is good with lots of beautiful quartz and stones at pocket money prices for kids to take a momento away.