A day at The Rhydymwyn Valley

The Rhydymwyn Valley Site, near Mold, has a history of lead, iron and agricultural industry. It was renamed in 1939 and became M.S.Factory Valley and was involved in the manufacture, assembly and storage of chemical weapons from 1940–1959 and later became a bulk storage depot for emergency supplies. The site of the Valley Works has now been returned to nature, attracts a wide variety of wildlife and is now designated as a nature reserve.

Myself, Geraldine and Dawn often have photo days out together, and yesterday was one of these - Geraldine is a member of the historical society associated with the Rhydymwyn Valley site, and as such is able to take guests in to explore the area - and yesterday, she very kindly signed herself and Dawn and I in for the day.

Its a photographers paradise, in a lot of ways - the site is extensive, and there are literally dozens of buildings, that hark back to the time when the area was M.S. Factory Valley, where chemical weapons were produced.  

Some of the buildings have the entrances screened off - these are the buildings where colonies of bats are established, and to protect them, visitors are not allowed in - but even more are completely accessible, and are fascinating - from big, echoing 'hangers' . . .

To many smaller 'units' .

There is an incredible atmosphere to the interior of the buildings, a little creepy at times . . .

There are long corridors, with paint peeling off the walls and the sun shining through the door and window openings -

And plenty to evoke images and thoughts of the long gone staff that worked there, with walls covered in graffiti, left by them

In one corridor, we found a still inhabited swallows nest . . .

There were FOUR birds crammed in there!


Outside the buildings, there is still more to catch your eye.

The profusion of wild flowers is stunning . . .

And where there are wild flowers, there are insects, from butterflies -

. . . to bees, wasps, flies and hover flies . . .

And all manner of other little creatures .

There is a huge, reed covered pond, with these strange structures dotted around it.

There are Highland cattle roaming in parts of the site

And in the wooded areas are examples of art created for the place.  Quite creepy, a couple of them - they can give you a bit of a jolt when you suddenly spot them !

At one point, the sunlight hit some pine trees, and from a distance, they appeared to be glistening - approaching, we saw the cones were covered in an icing sugar frosting-like resin, that looked like it had frozen as it dripped -

The absolute high light of the day for me was a sighting we made late morning - I was about to take a snap of the view ahead of me, when Geraldine suddenly shouted me - and guess what was making its way across one of the old roads . . .

A grass snake, and I'd guess a female - they are up to 8" longer than the males, and thicker - and this was one BIG snake - we estimated her to be around 3 and 1/2 feet long, and easily as thick as my wrist.

I couldn't believe our luck - these creatures are usually so shy, to see one so clearly and to get so close was fantastic!

This is just a small fraction of the images I got - its definitely a place I'll visit again !