Water
is a precious resource for all of us, and yet here at the cafe we don’t have any mains water. All of our water for everything comes from a spring - Ffynnon Gaseg. In the warmer weather - and we get a lot of that - the spring can run very slowly, so we have to conserve water in every way possible.
Ffynnon Gaseg - literally "Mare's well" - was revealed at the side of the road, about half way round and near the highest point, during the construction of the Marine Drive in the 19th century. It was used to refresh the horses on the five-mile carriage drive round the base of the Great Orme. With the creation of Llandudno, the first route round the perimeter of the Great Orme was a dangerous footpath constructed in 1858 by Reginald Cust, a trustee of the Mostyn Estate.
In 1868, the Prime Minister, William Gladstone, walked the path, and complained that it was so dangerous he had to be blindfolded to be led along some particularly difficult sections. So in April 1869, the town commissioners ordered £10 of ratepayers’ money to be spent providing railings along the worst parts.
In 1872 the Great Ormes Head Marine Drive Co. Ltd. was formed to turn the path into a Victorian carriage road and made plans for a £14,000 conversion of Cust’s Path into the current road.
However, it went bankrupt before the work was finished. and a second company - a consortium led by Richard Hughes of Madoc Street, Llandudno - completed the road in 1878.
The road was bought by Llandudno Urban District Council in 1897.