The Places Where We Go: Tal y Fan

A little while ago I heard about the rock cannon on Tal y Fan. Soon this thing became my Moby Dick. I was Captain Ahab, in relentless pursuit of the thing that tormented me. I first heard about it in a few casual words.

Did I know about the rock cannon on Tal y Fan?

No, I'd never heard of rock cannon.

It's something the quarrymen made. They would drill holes in a stone, connected by a little channel, and use it to set off homemade fireworks made of gunpowder, for celebrations and special events.

I listened and was intrigued, but not hooked. It was only later, when I learnt more, that I became obsessed with finding this thing.

There are estimated to be a few hundred of these things dotted around North Wales. It's not a practice entirely restricted to the area, but there is a concentration here. There were so many miners and quarry workers leading hard, relentless work lives, working to live. No wonder they took the chance to celebrate joyfully when they could. There are a number of these cannon mentioned online, but not the Tal y Fan one. All I had were the vague and ever changing directions of a neighbour. On the summit of Tal y Fan, on the south side of the wall, about twenty feet from the trig point. Or two hundred feet. Or two hundred yards. The cannon was on a big rock, or on a cliff, or nearby. It was a game of Chinese whispers played between my neighbour, my parents, and myself.

Rock cannon were made by hand drilling holes into stone, sometimes in simple lines, sometimes in elaborate patterns. These holes were connected either by channels or lines of goose fat, along which gunpowder would be run to join the holes. The holes themselves were packed with gunpowder, a fuse made of a feather, and crushed stone. This arrangement would then be lit, setting the gunpower packed holes off in sequence, sometimes in very elaborate displays that could even achieve something like a tune. See Wikipedia for a more detailed description.

For some wonderful accounts from the early nineteenth century of how these rock cannon were used, take a look at these extracts from local newspapers on the celebrations that went on.

Tal y Fan, seen from the Rowen road, near the entrance to Gorswen. From below it looks like a simple long ridge, whereas in fact, it's a complicated landscape of gullies, flat spaces, tiny tarns, and tumbled boulders.

Before I managed to locate the cannon on Tal y Fan I saw the more impressive one in Cwm Eigiau, at the quarry there. There are three rocks with holes drilled in them and the main rock, a great flat sheet, resembled an alien anthropologist's mystery. Something that perhaps represented star systems? Important routes for migration or ritual ceremonies? It could have been either, but it wasn't. It was the evidence of brief moments of joy in the lives of men who sometimes walked twelve miles a day over the mountains, in all seasons, for a punishing job in which the chances of dying young were high.

The main Cwm Eigiau rock cannon.

I was now determined to find the Tal y Fan rock cannon, to get the Ordnance Survey grid reference, and to put it online so other people could find it.

I went up once, in the summer heat. It's a long walk up to the summit from my house, the last part of the ascent being something of a scrabble up rocky slopes. I got to the trig point and worked out roughly where twenty feet from there would be. I walked up and down, back and forth. I found nothing.

I went up again, still more determined. Back and forth, over to the wall, out towards where the hill slopes down to the valley, circling rocks, calf deep in heather, stamping my foot on places where there might be rock under the growth, lifting mats of heather, moss, bilberries, and crowberries, looking for any sign of holes beneath. Still nothing. Nothing at all.

I climbed Tal y Fan a third time, this time under heavy cloud. As I started up the slope to the mountain proper, mist came in. Then rain. Then thunder. We, the dog and I, were almost at the stile where you start up the rocky crags to the summit. There wasn't anywhere to go. We huddled down on the heather while a terrifying storm passed overhead, the sky cracking with lightning and thunder, the rain coming down so hard I might as well have been naked. But, after a while, the storm faded away. Soaking and dripping, we made our way up the final slope.

After the rain, everything was fresh and new and beautiful. So, we searched. And searched. Eventually I spied something, in a rock I'd looked at before. Two drill holes, each about an inch across, near the bottom of a big stone.

At last I had found something, after my transformative storm. I was glad, even if it wasn't very impressive and didn't look much like a rock cannon. I've written a more comprehensive account of that summer storm here.

Next time my dad was on the phone to the neighbour I got him to ask, does the rock cannon on Tal y Fan only have two holes?

No, it has about eight, connected by a channel.

I admit I was pleased these paltry two holes weren't what I was after, even as I was frustrated that I still hadn't found it. I wonder what these two holes were for?

After a time, armed with new information, I tried again. This time a lot had changed. It was still on that side of the wall, but it was a long way along the ridge from the summit. It was on the side of a deep gully, the kind of place you initially don't want to try climbing down. There was a big rock - or cliff, depending on which parent I listened to. This rock was thirty or forty feet high. The rock cannon was somewhere behind it.

So, I walked a long way, following the contours of the mountaintop, the ups and downs. I got as far as a place with something like a cliff, the first part where I'd thought twice about my safety in going down. Better yet, this was close to what looked like old, rudimentary stone workings.

The cliff that I thought twice about.

The possible quarry workings nearby. It might be that they're just stones lying on the surface.

I searched and searched, and still found no rock cannon. I walked far enough along the mountain to be able to see the little ring fort of Caer Bach at the other end. There was something wrong with me that day. I suffered a chemical inbalance in my mind. I felt exhausted, and crushed. In the end I gave up, utterly dejected.

The next day I went for a long walk, nowhere near Tal y Fan, up Carnedd Llewelyn and back down past Melynllyn and Dulyn. Meanwhile, my dad went up Tal y Fan - and found the rock cannon. Of course.

Sunday was a day of rest. Monday was my day.

This time I went up the hill armed with photographs of the rock, taken by my dad, and a rough grid reference. This time I was going to find it. It was a hot Indian summer day in September, too hot for storming up mountains, but I was going to have that rock cannon. This first part up the hill from the road is something of a slog, but there are plenty of places to sit on a boulder, get your breath back, and admire the view.

The third stile on the way up to Tal y Fan, where you pass onto what is more the mountain proper.

On top of the pass between Tal y Fan and Foel Lwyd, the views stretch out over Ynys Mon and the Irish Sea.

The final part of the mountain is a scramble up steep slopes covered in stones.

Looking back down to the pass between Tal y Fan and Foel Lwyd, and the larger Bwlch y Ddeufaen pass which stretches over to Abergwyngregyn.

The higher you get, the more stunning the views of the sea and Ynys Mon.

Looking north-east, the Great Orme can be seen, with Llandudno the low piece of land to its right.

One of Tal y Fan's gullies between ridges. There are a lot of ups and downs to get to the summit.

I crossed back over the wall at the stile to arrive at the trig point and views out over the Conwy Valley.

Looking back, the sun was lowering in the west.

A little way along the ridge to the east, and finally I was there. This was the rock. Not a cliff, not thirty to forty feet high. I didn't have to think twice about going down into the gully. But, this was the rock. Rather gallingly, I'd investigated this one before, and still not seen the rock cannon.

And here it is in all its glory. A simple line of seven holes, a little crooked at the bottom end, joined by a shallow channel. Ordnance Survey Grid Reference SH 73082 72702.

A better view of the line of holes and the channel which joins them.

The stone in a slightly wider context, with the sun going down beyond.

A close up of two of the holes, and the shallow channel.

Yes, there are too many photos of this thing, but I don't care. I worked hard enough to find it.

The kink at the end of the line. I don't know if this was some little bit of artistic flair, or just whim. The channels could be curved to slow the speed of travel from one hole to another, but in this case the line doesn't seem any longer than the others.