Summit Up.
28th May 2026
After a week of record temperatures, GOES members were greeted with very different weather conditions on the second walk of the season with a cold, westerly gale battering the summit of the Great Orme. The walk commenced with a talk about Parc Farm and its origins from common grazing land to proposed ‘garden city’ to golf course and back to farmland. Moving onto the summit building we heard of its transition from Napoleonic War lookout, through to being a semaphore station, hotel, golf clubhouse and wartime radar installation to a place of fun and leisure owned by Leslie Salts and pugilist, Randolph Turpin. After viewing the remains of his outdoor boxing ring, we descended from the summit to overlook the ancient community of Cyngreawdr and heard about the remains of the settlement here and the ridge and furrow agricultural system. After viewing the Iron Age roundhouse and the nineteenth century bell pits, we talked about the dewatering of the Old and New Mines and the GOES assets of Romans and Treweek’s shafts as well as the Ali Series. A steady climb followed back to the summit where it was nigh on impossible to stand up but between great gusts of wind, we heard about the very first man to drive a car to the summit of the Great Orme in 1904.
Many thanks to Adrian for organising this walk and thanks to Christine for the fantastic photo's.