The Little Orme rises to over 400 feet. The Eastern shoulder of the Little Orme includes the old quarry and the gun emplacements of the Coast Artillery School. The Coast Artillery School courses began in Llandudno on 24 September 1940 and the first students arrived on 17 September 1940. By 1942, the School was organised into a Gunnery Wing, Wireless (Radar) Wing, Twenty First Coast Battery (Demonstrations, Trials and Experiments), Administrative Wing and Workshops. About this time a Coast Training Regiment was included in the School and remained there until the Summer of 1944. The remains of the quarry and the gun emplacements have been rapidly absorbed into the Penrhyn Bay housing estate.
Quarrying took place on the Little Orme between 1889 until 1931. It was ultimately a large excavation of limestone at the north east end of the headland facing Penrhyn Bay. It was one of the biggest and most economical sites. This place was typical of a North Wales Quarry undertaking, with its two main periods in history. The Little Orme's Head Limestone Quarry Company was founded by Joseph Storey of Lancashire. It was formed in July 1889 having purchased Edward Fidler's thirty year lease of the foreshore. In 1896, fifty men were employed in and twenty nine outside the quarry. They shipped limestone to the Clyde and Argyll coast ports for use in blast furnaces and chemical works. The Company was liquidated in June 1913 and was wound up in 1914. The quarry had reopened in 1920 under the Ship Canal Portland Cement Manufacturers Limited of 1912, who were renamed Allied Cement Manufacturers Limited in August 1929. In the early 1920s output was approximately 67,000 tons annually with 87 men employed in and 45 outside the quarry. In 1927, the whole site was modernised but demand started to fall and in 1931 the quarry was wound up.
Original Index No. E0074.