the Rest and Be Thankful
The cliff top cafe with a heart of gold

A walk around the Marine Drive on the Great Orme is a fascinating experience, with a wealth of Archaeology, Geology and Biology on view. But it's a thirsty walk, and all uphill. Half way round, at the highest point, there's a great surprise in store.

The cafe

was built in 1908, and there’s an apocryphal story that suggests the then owner’s somewhat dominant wife wasn’t seen after the concrete foundations were laid…

Originally, the cafe was a simple shack, but in the 1980s it was  expanded to hold 16 seats, and acted as a warm and cosy shelter for the winter walkers.

In 2001 the cafe was expanded again, through EU grant aid, to house a toilet and a larger room, and in 2019 the final expansion phase saw a much larger main room and the new roof terrace created.

We have ample free parking, plenty of space inside, outside and on the roof and the best toasted teacakes to be found anywhere.
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.

 The famous goats you may see are free to roam, so they could be anywhere on the headland. They’re Kashmir goats and have roamed wild for around 100 years. The herd dates back to 1823, when a landowner shipped two Kashmir goats to his estate to produce cashmere shawls. After winning the gold medal of the Society of Arts for one of his shawls in 1828, he gave two of his goats to the much-impressed King George IV, who kept them on his Windsor Estate. This was the beginning of the Royal Windsor Herd of Kashmir goats, and by the time that Victoria came to the throne, the population had increased dramatically. When Victoria was made Queen in 1837, the Shah of Persia gave her two white Kashmir goats as a present. However, the herd began to suffer from inbreeding and in 1889 a new herd was shipped over from India as a present for the queen. During the later part of the 19th century, Major General Sir Savage Mostyn acquired a pair of the goats and brought them for breeding to nearby Gloddaeth. Once there was a large enough population, he released the goats to roam wild over the Great Orme, and they have done so ever since.

We're open every day except Christmas Day

And you can be sure of a warm welcome
              on cold winter days.

       1000 - 1700 Tel: 01492 870004