Sitting a short stroll from the Great Orme Tramway's Halfway Station is the largest prehistoric mine ever discovered. Roman remains were originally believed to be the oldest findings in this Bronze Age mine until 4000-year-old animal bones and stone scrapers were discovered some 60m below the ground in 1987. After watching an explanatory film, visitors are able to explore portions of more than 5 miles of tunnels dug over centuries in search of copper.
The self-guided tour explains how the ancients turned rock into copper at the smelting site. You then head underground for about 200m into 3500-year-old tunnels, and get to peer down an open 145m Victorian mine shaft. The site, whose discovery moved Britain's metallurgic history back a mind-boggling 2000 years, was worked again from the 17th to 19th centuries. Spoiler alert: early copper extraction using very basic tools was made possible by dolomitisation, a geological process resulting in the softening of the rock.