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The National Gazetteer of Great Britain and Ireland - 1868
National Gazetteer (1868)
"LLANDUDNO, a parish and watering-place in the hundred of Creuddyn, county Carnarvon, 4 miles N. of Conway, its post town, and 12 N.W. of Abergele. It is a station on the Chester and Holyhead railway, which has a branch line to Llanrwst. There are two townships, upper and lower, abounding in copper, lime, &c. The village, which is considerable, is situated under the promontory called Great Orme's Head. Until within the last twenty years it was an insignificant village, resorted to only by a few families for the sake of its delicious western breezes, but since the opening of the railway it has vastly increased in prosperity, and may be styled the Welsh Brighton, not only from the abundance, but the excellent quality of its accommodations offered to the visitors.Its main features are a crescent following the sweep of the bay, with parallel streets running across from it to the Conway Sands, thus possessing the peculiar advantage of two different aspects, enabling persons to bathe in almost any weather. The neighbourhood abounds with walks and scenery, both inland and by the seashore, attractive to the naturalist, the antiquary, and the pleasure seeker. The cliffs are the resort of various kinds of sea fowl. The only drawbacks are the want of vegetation that characterises the scenery, and the very high price of lodgings, but this latter defect will probably pass away as soon as the novelty of a new and fashionable watering-place has worn off.
The living is a perpetual curacy* in the diocese of Bangor, value with the curacy of St. Tudno, £363, in the patronage of the Archdeacon of Merioneth. The church is a modern structure, dedicated to St. Tudno. The parochial charities amount to about £14 per annum. Near the ruins of the old church on the cliffs is a semaphore signal, which until recently formed part of the Holyhead and Liverpool telegraph, but all these stations are now disused, having given place to the electric wires which follow the course of the high roads. Quantities of Roman remains have been found here, and in the vicinity of Dinas Fort is a logan stone called Cryd Tudno."
"GREAT ORME'S HEAD, (and Little Orme's Head) two headlands in the parish of Llandudno, on the coast of county Carnarvon, with a rocky bay between, near the estuary of the Conway. They form part of a lofty limestone ridge of hills, rising from 500 to 700 feet above the sea level, and serve as sea-marks. Sea-fowl breed in the cliffs, and several varieties of rare plants are found."
[Description(s) from The National Gazetteer of Great Britain and Ireland (1868)Transcribed by Colin Hinson ©2003]
A Topographical Dictionary of Wales Samuel Lewis, 1833
LLANDUDNO (LLAN-DUDNO), a parish in the hundred of CREUDDYN, County of CARNARVON, NORTH WALES, 4 miles (N. by W.) from Aberconway, containing 662 inhabitants. This parish is situated on the shore of the Irish sea, and comprises the promontory called by the Welsh Gogarth, and by the English Great Orme's Head. It is bounded on the north and west by the Irish sea, and on the south by the aestuary of the river Conway ; and is connected with the main land, on the east, by a narrow isthmus of sand, intersected by a small valley through which the tide formerly flowed, thus nearly insulating it. The bay of Llandudno is one of the finest on this coast, extending in the form of a crescent from the base of the promontory to the Lesser Orme's Head, without interruption, and affording excellent. and secure shelter to shipping during heavy gales. The north side of Great Orme's Head is broken into craggy precipices of various elevation, which, during the breeding season, are the resort of various aquatic birds, among which are the gull, the razor-bill, the guillemot, the cormorant, the heron, and sometimes the falcon : these occupy respectively their several stations in the rocks, the gulls having the lowest and the herons the highest situations ; and a small number of puffins is scattered indiscriminately in various places. The eggs of the razor-bill are esteemed a delicacy, and the sale of them, generally at two shillings per dozen, affords a livelihood to several families employed during the season in procuring them. The western side of the promontory is one vast precipice : the mountain extends into the plain above the village, forming a precipitous eminence, the summit of which is called Dinas, and is surrounded with a wall of loose stones, very rudely formed, within which are the foundations of numerous circular buildings, varying in diameter from twelve to thirty feet, and arranged round the west and south sides of the mountain. In the centre is a rocking-stone, called Cryd Tudno, or the " cradle of St. Tudno ; " and upon the extreme northern point of the eminence are the ruins of a large square building, of which the walls, apparently constructed without mortar, lie scattered in various, directions. On the highest point of the promontory, and near the Great Orme's Head, a signal staff has been erected, communicating with Llysvaen, on the east, and with the island of Priestholme on the west, and forming a post in the line of communication between Liverpool and Holyhead. In some parts the mountain, which is about five miles in circumference, affords good pasturage for sheep, and near the summit are some extensive copper mines, from which about three thousand tons of ore, of a very pure quality, are raised annually and sent to Swansea and to Cheadle, for the purpose of being smelted : the number of men employed in these mines is, on an average, about one hundred and twenty. The mountain consists of alternate beds of chert and limestone, uniformly dipping from every side to a common centre, where the great mass of ore is found. This parish is the head of the great manor granted by Edward I. to the see of Bangor, and is one of the four parishes in this county which are on the Denbighshire side of the river Conway. The living is a perpetual curacy, in the archdeaconry and diocese of Bangor, endowed with £400 royal bounty, and £ 1600 parliamentary grant, and in the patronage of the Archdeacon of Merioneth, to whom the rectorial tithes are appropriated. The church, dedicated to St. Tudno, is a small structure, about two miles distant from the village, and situated on the summit of the cliffs, over-hanging the sea. There are places of worship for Baptists and Calvinistic and Wesleyan Methodists. A free school was established here at a very early period, in which twenty boys and ten girls are at present instructed ; and a Dew school-house is now in progress of erection, the expense of which will be defrayed out of the accumulation of the surplus funds. The poor children of the parish are also entitled to receive gratuitous instruction in the National school founded by Mrs. Mostyn in the adjoining parish of Eglwys-Rhos. Lewis Owen, Esq., in 1623, bequeathed one-eighth part of the tithes of the parish of Aberconway for clothing poor old men and women of this parish, above sixty years of age ; and Mr. Richard ab Robert, prior to 1732, bequeathed £40, and Mr. Thomas Evans, about the same time, £20, the produce of which is annually distributed among the poor on St. Thomas's day. In the copper mines is found a great variety of mineral curiosities, such as beautiful specimens of malachite, or mammalated green carbonate of copper, &c. The average annual expenditure to maintain the poor is £ 140. 14.(Copied using the Cd published by Archive CD Books