page_title: Great Orme
section_title: Second World War
hierarchical_section_title: Great Orme / History / Second World War
caption_attribution_description: English: Gun emplacements Remains of the gun emplacements which were used by the Royal Artillery coastal gunnery school when it was located on the Great Orme from 1940. This site was reached by concrete steps which have now fallen away due to the constant landslipping. The mass-concrete emplacements have now begun to tilt quite alarmingly towards the sea as the boulder clay creeps forward and down the hill. They were built in a hurry and not required to last for such a long time.
context_page_description: The Great Orme is a mountain on the north coast of Wales, north-west of the town of Llandudno. Referred to as Cyngreawdr Fynydd by the 12th-century poet Gwalchmai ap Meilyr, its English name derives from the Old Norse word for sea serpent. The Little Orme, a smaller but very similar limestone headland, is on the eastern side of Llandudno Bay.
context_section_description: The Royal Artillery coast artillery school was transferred from Shoeburyness to the Great Orme in 1940 (and additionally a Practice Camp was established on the Little Orme in 1941) during the Second World War. Target practice was undertaken from the headland to both towed and anchored boats. Experimental work and training was also provided for radio direction finding. The foundations of some of the buildings and installations remain and can be seen from the western end of the Marine Drive. The site of the school was scheduled as an Ancient Monument in 2011 by CADW, the Welsh Government's Historic Monuments body. This was done in recognition of the site's significance in a UK and Welsh context.
  Also of note was the Aerial Defence Research and Development Establishment (ADRDE) known as "X3" which was a 3-storey building erected in 1942. This seems to have been a secret radar experimental station above the artillery school. The road put in to serve it now serves a car park on the approximate site of the station, which was demolished in 1956.
caption: Gun emplacements belonging to the coastal artillery school.
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