Saturday 17th July 1819
Saturday July 17th We made an excursion today to the Copper Mines in the isle of Anglesey having crossed the Menai we proceeded to the comfortable Inn of Gwindie* and having taken
a little refreshment reached the Mines at about 5 o’clock. I was much struck by the appearance of the inside of them which resembles a Gold mine since my brothers went down to the bottom of Parys mine but as it was impossible for us to do as we looked through a small hole whence we had a good view of the whole which being very dark has quite a horrid effect. We picked up several specimens of the copper in its different stages. We returned to a late dinner at Gwindie* where we remained for the night.
OBSERVATIONS & COMMENTS:
Copper was mined at Parys Mountain in the Bronze Age. It was taken down to Amlwch Port where it was further processed and then shipped around the world. After the 1760s Amlwch became the cauldron of the Industrial Revolution from the largest copper mine in the world. The copper from this mine coated the warships of the Royal Navy at Trafalgar in 1805. https://www.visitanglesey.co.uk/en/things-to-do/activities/amlwch-copper-kingdom/#.W-9fV-KYQ5s
1815: Isle of Anglesea - Near the Paris Mine. Engraving by F. Stevens after W. De la Motte.https://antique-prints-maps.com/acatalog/ref1.php?imagefile=../largeimages/SENearTheParisMine18.jpg
The ore was of low quality but it was more than compensated for by the fact that it occurred in two large masses close to the surface. Initially ore was worked on the surface from shallow shafts, next by open-pit mining and finally underground from adits or from shafts.
Circa 1800: Paris Mine, aquatint engraving by J. Bluck after J. Ibbetson https://antique-prints-maps.com/acatalog/ref1.php?imagefile=../largeimages/SEParisMine16.jpg
The ore was broken into small lumps by hand, the best ore being shipped to Lancashire or to the Lower Swansea valley in South Wales through the port of Swansea for smelting. Copper was concentrated and extracted from the remainder using kilns and furnaces on site. It was also discovered that purer metal could be obtained efficiently, although in small amounts, by its precipitation from drainage water with scrap iron in purpose-built ponds. Associated with the mines, important chemical industries were established on the Mountain based on by-products such as ochre pigments, sulphur, vitriol and alum.
1800: Paris Mines in the Year 1800, an engraving by J. Havell after E. Pugh. Published in 1814. https://antique-prints-maps.com/acatalog/ref1.php?imagefile=../largeimages/SEParisMine13.jpg
Since 1988, Anglesey Mining plc, which owns the western part of the mountain has discovered resources of 6,500,000 tonnes containing 10% combined zinc, lead, copper with some silver and gold and has permits and a plan to restart mining operations at 350,000 tonnes per year. However, in the late 1990s, surveys of the mine's hydraulic systems revealed that a large reservoir held back by a dam in an underground working was in poor condition. An assessment made at the time considered that failure of the dam was likely and that catastrophic failure could inundate parts of Amlwch causing loss of life and substantial damage to property. An added complication was that the water in the underground reservoir was highly polluted by copper and other metals and was very acidic.
2011: The Anglesey Copper Mountain near Amlwch, Wales, by Mark.murphy, the copyright holder, who permits publication under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Parys_mountain.jpg
In 2003 a carefully controlled drainage operation was carried out which dropped the water levels by 70 metres (230 ft), releasing the pressure on the dam and enabling its removal. The removal of the reservoir also gave access to many more passages and to a connection to the nearby previously inaccessible Mona Mine. The entry into these sections was filmed for the TV series Extreme Archaeology.
Due to the high level of soil contamination little life survives on or near the mountain, but there are a number of examples of rare plants and bacteria. The bare, heavily mined landscape give the mountain a strange appearance which has been used in science fiction film and television productions. Due to the high chemical content of the water, snottites thrive in the until recently submerged passages.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parys_Mountain
Anglesea has long been associated with the druids. In AD 60 the Roman general Gaius Suetonius Paulinus, determined to break the power of the druids, attacked the island using his amphibious Batavian contingent as a surprise vanguard assault and then destroying the shrine and the nemetons (sacred groves). News of Boudica's revolt reached him just after his victory, causing him to withdraw his army before consolidating his conquest.
1607: John Speeds County maps of Wales for first published in The Theatre of the Empire of Great Britain by George Humble in the collection of the National Library of Wales. This work is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 70 years or less. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:John_Speed_Anglesey.jpg
The island's entire rural coastline has been designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and features many sandy beaches, especially along its eastern coast between the towns of Beaumaris and Amlwch and along the western coast from Ynys Llanddwyn through Rhosneigr to the little bays around Carmel Head.
2009: Anglesey Coast View north east along the north side of the Menai Straits near Bryn-mel by Nigel Mykura, from geograph.org.uk. The copyright on this image is owned by Nigel Mykura and is licensed for reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Anglesey_Coast_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1367265.jpg
The northern coastline has dramatic cliffs interspersed with small bays The Anglesey Coastal Path follows the entire way around the island. It is 124 miles long and passes by/through 20 towns/villages. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglesey
Menai Straight: The sea channel that separates Anglesey from mainland Gwynedd.
circa 1860: The Menai Straits, from the heights of Garth Point. Print in the collection of National Library of Wales Accession number 1128886. This work in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 70 years or less. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Menai_Straits,_from_the_heights_of_Garth_Point.jpeg
It is connected to the mainland by Thomas Telford’s Menai Suspension Bridge and Robert Stephenson’s Britannia Bridge. The Strait varies in width from about 300m to three quarters of a mile. https://www.visitanglesey.co.uk/en/things-to-do/activities/landscape-menai-strait/#.W_CKO-KYQ5s . The hazards of this crossing were the driving force which led to the creation of Telford's suspension bridge, particularly the area called “The Swellies”, below.
2008: The infamous Swellies - The copyright on this image is owned by Ian Greig and is licensed for reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_infamous_Swellies_-_geograph.org.uk_-_879574.jpg
The Swellies is the most treacherous section of the Menai Strait. A medieval document quoted in the book 'The Menai Strait' [2003] (also published in Welsh under the title 'Y Fenai' [2002]) by Gwyn Pari Huws and Terry Beggs (Gwasg Gomer Press) states: In that arm of the see that departeth between this island Mon and North Wales is a swelowe that draweth to schippes that seileth and sweloweth hem yn, as doth Scylla and Charybdis - therefore we may nouzt seile by this swalowe but slily at the full see. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swellies
Gwyndy Inn*: Having had problems transcribing the name of the Inn we were contacted after initial publication by Dr John Taylor, who provided us with the following gems:
“Gwyndy was a centrally located coaching house, and was well-known in its day. Samuel Johnson went from Caernarvon to Gwyndy in 1774. See: https://archive.org/details/diaryofjourneyin00john/page/194/mode/2up/search/Gwyndy?q=Gwyndy. The Rev. Bingley likewise used the Caernarvon to Gwyndy route during his 1798 tour of North Wales, and calls Gwyndy ‘a good inn’.See: https://archive.org/details/tourroundnorthwa02bing/page/326/mode/2up/search/Gwyndy?q=Gwyndy . Today Gwyndy is a ruin. See: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Ruins_of_Gwyndy,_Llandrygan,_Anglesey._-_geograph.org.uk_-_110748.jpg
2006: The Ruins of Gwyndy, Llandrygan, Anglesey. Gwyndy (Whitehouse) is the ruin of an old coaching house. This building must have once been a very busy place, rather like a motorway service station of the eighteenth century. The building also periodically served as a courthouse. http://www.gtj.org.uk/en/blowup6/17904 . Photo by Stephen Elwyn Roddick. This image was taken from the Geograph project collection. The copyright on this image is owned by Stephen Elwyn Roddick and is licensed for reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA 2.0) license.The_Ruins_of_Gwyndy,_Llandrygan,_Anglesey._-_geograph.org.uk_-_110748.jpg
“It would have been about a three-hour walk from Gwyndy to Parys Mt., quicker by horse or conveyance. English tourists sometimes mis-spelled names in Welsh, and we see it spelled Gwindy (as in Ten Days' Tour Through the Isle of Anglesea, December, 1802, p. 53) by Rev. John Skinner. See: https://archive.org/details/tendaystourthrou00skin/page/n1/mode/2up . Also the poet, Joseph Hucks, a friend of Coleridge, took the Caernarvon to Gwyndy route in 1794. He too went on to Parys Mt. His work, published in 1795, is called A Pedestrian Tour through North Wales, in a Series of Letters, on pages 40-41, he says ‘We dined yesterday at Gwyndn, on the great road to Holyhead’. He describes it as a ‘hospitable inn’, where he enjoyed excellent service from the hostess. The inn was put up for sale in 1809. See (far left column) https://newspapers.library.wales/view/3871621/3871622/1/Gwyndy . “ The sale details describe the lot as follows: THIS capital and long- established INN, is situate upon the Great Irish road from London to Dublin, half way between Bangor Ferry and Holyhead, within 12 miles of each, with extensive stabling, coach-houses, and other outbuildings, together with a valuable farm of upwards of 300 acres of rich land adjoining', in the highest state of cultivation. The house has lately been enlarged at a considerable expence, for the accommodation of the great increase of Travellers, since the union with Ireland, and is most desirably situate at the first stage from Holyhead, and there are few (if any) better houses, both with respect to situation and accommodation, than Gwyndy. The Coplands would have visited ten years later when it was under new ownership
We see from Dr Taylor’s references that it was a good, hospitable Inn that Lucy records as “comfortable” and where the family returned for a late dinner and to stay the night.
Dr Taylor has since provided us with more on Gwyndy with a reference to The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Holyhead Road Vol.2, by Charles G Harper : https://www.gutenberg.org/files/58841/58841-h/58841-h.htm#Page_319 … “At Gwyndû or Glanyrafon, half-way across the Island, an old coachman, not so handy as most of his fellows, failed to steer so neatly as he should between the great stones that in the good old days lay loosely about the road; with the result that the jolt knocked him off his box and he suffered a broken leg. Gwyndû in those times was a noted inn. It is now, like many another, a farmhouse, and all the historian can glean of its history is found in the fugitive notes of century-old tourists. Thus, a Mr. Hucks, pedestrianising in 1795, says he dined at Gwyndû inn, and that the hostess, a “fine old lady,” paid him and his companion “the utmost attention, and appeared particularly solicitous; gave us her blessing at our departure, with a thousand admonitions not to lose ourselves,” which of course they did. Rain and storm beset them, and they gladly quitted the “inauspicious island.” ..
This section continues with a delightful comment on the difficulties of traveling without a knowledge of Welsh: “There is little difficulty in losing one’s way on this old road, for when maps fail there is not a soul here who can understand the English tongue. One might talk Hindustani with equal chance of being understood. Welsh is the only language spoken, for the bi-lingual Welshman is left behind when crossing the Menai. Anglesey is the great stronghold of the Welsh language, and in many of its villages it is impossible to find a single person who understands a word of English. Dim saesoneg is the sole reply the traveller is likely to meet with on the road, or if by chance, in some more civilised townlet, he makes himself understood, the broken and grotesque English of the replies he obtains is likely to be quite unintelligible. Even those who can command a little “Saxon” are chary of using it, and not a few of those who gruffly grunt Dim saesoneg do so because they are shy of their attempts at an unfamiliar tongue being laughed at.”
Furthermore, Charles G Harper continues with a rich description of the scenery above Gwyndû, which he states “may be commended to the attention of those who describe Anglesey as flat, dull, and featureless” and the Gutenberg reference, above, is worth looking at to enjoy Harper’s ability to paint a beautiful word description of the scene above the Inn.
Dr Taylor also added a reference to another map of Anglesea: https://www.gillmark.com/map/anglesey-67/sidney-hall-2407/#&gid=1&pid=1
Can you help us?
Old Regency Prints, Pictures an Coaching maps: Do you have access to any prints or pictures showing what town and country would have looked like when Lucy travelled through? Any illustrations of what she would have seen in 1819 will enliven our research.
New Pictures: Do you have any modern pictures of the streets, buildings, gardens and views that would enable us to see the changes that two centuries have wrought?