The Great OrmeMountain or HillThe Great Orme is a prominent limestone headland 679 ft high to the west of Llandudno and can be accessed by both a tramway and a cable car. It is echoed by the Little Orme, a smaller but very similar limestone headland, which is on the eastern side of Llandudno Bay.
The Great Orme is a nature reserve with a number of protective designations being an area 2 miles long by 1 mile wide. It is home to a long-established herd of about two hundred feral Kashmir goats (acquired from Queen Victoria). There are numerous paths for walking on the summit, including a section of the North Wales Path, a long distance route. About half the Great Orme is in use as farmland, mostly for sheep grazing.
The geology of the Great Orme is a massive dolomite peninsula of limestone and the surface is particularly noted for the limestone pavements covering several headland areas. There are also rich seams of Dolomite-hosted copper ore. The Great Orme Copper mine was estimated to have produced in the Bronze Age enough copper to make about 2,000 tons of bronze.
The Great Orme has a very rich flora and many of the flowers growing in shallow lime-rich earth on the headland have developed from the alpine sub-Arctic species that developed following the last ice-age. The cliffs are host to colonies of seabirds (such as guillemots, kittiwakes, razorbills and even fulmars as well as gulls). The Great Orme is also home to many resident and migrant land birds including ravens, little owls and peregrine falcons. Below the cliffs, the rock-pools around the headland are a rich and varied habitat for aquatic plants and animals.LlandudnoConwyUnited Kingdomhttp://www.showmewales.co.uk/?dms=3&pid=
The Great Orme
Mountain or Hill
The Great Orme
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The Great Orme is a prominent limestone headland 679 ft high to the west of Llandudno and can be accessed by both a tramway and a cable car.
Head for the promenade, turn left and continue towards the pier. Left at a roundabout by the Belmont Hotel will take you to the Tramway or continue past the Grand Hotel for the Cable Car.
The Great Orme
The Great Orme
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