WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

1
00:00:02.750 --> 00:00:05.620
- All through the old mining
areas of Northwest Wales,

2
00:00:05.620 --> 00:00:08.960
if you know where to look,
you can find rock cannon.

3
00:00:08.960 --> 00:00:10.300
This is the best known one

4
00:00:10.300 --> 00:00:12.980
in what's now a tourist town
called Betws-y-Coed.

5
00:00:12.980 --> 00:00:16.460
Rock cannon are big lumps of rock
with small holes drilled into them.

6
00:00:16.460 --> 00:00:17.620
And in the 19th century,

7
00:00:17.620 --> 00:00:20.560
if there was something to be celebrated
in a mining town round here,

8
00:00:20.560 --> 00:00:25.760
locals would light fireworks, bonfires,
and also fire rock cannon.

9
00:00:25.760 --> 00:00:27.690
Put gunpowder in the little holes,

10
00:00:27.690 --> 00:00:29.170
connect them up with more gunpowder,

11
00:00:29.170 --> 00:00:32.140
either in little channels or by
sticking it on with goose grease.

12
00:00:32.140 --> 00:00:37.590
Stick a feather in one end as a fuse,
light it, and stand well back.

13
00:00:37.590 --> 00:00:40.560
There are more than 200
rock cannon around Wales

14
00:00:40.560 --> 00:00:42.310
and they were used for all sorts
of events.

15
00:00:42.310 --> 00:00:44.940
Visiting royalty?
Greeted by rock cannon.

16
00:00:44.940 --> 00:00:47.380
Big wedding to celebrate? Rock cannon.

17
00:00:47.380 --> 00:00:50.480
First train on a new railway?
Rock cannon.

18
00:00:50.480 --> 00:00:51.782
It wasn't an everyday thing,

19
00:00:51.782 --> 00:00:54.750
but it definitely wasn't
once in a lifetime either.

20
00:00:54.750 --> 00:00:56.980
It doesn't happen much any more, sadly.

21
00:00:56.980 --> 00:00:59.310
They more or less faded out
in the mid-20th century.

22
00:00:59.310 --> 00:01:00.610
Most of the mines have closed

23
00:01:00.610 --> 00:01:04.200
and far fewer people have ready access
to explosives these days.

24
00:01:04.200 --> 00:01:07.980
I did consider asking if I could bring
some gunpowder and fire a cannon,

25
00:01:07.980 --> 00:01:10.390
but an  Englishman coming to North Wales

26
00:01:10.390 --> 00:01:13.537
and saying, "Can I put gunpowder
in your historical artefacts

27
00:01:13.537 --> 00:01:16.290
"and create a big explosion in the
middle of a national park"

28
00:01:16.290 --> 00:01:19.471
is... not a good look?
So instead...

29
00:01:19.471 --> 00:01:21.850
...I asked the
explosives engineer I know

30
00:01:21.850 --> 00:01:24.290
if he'd be able to build one,
out here on the test range.

31
00:01:24.290 --> 00:01:27.150
And he said yes, but...
it's two months later.

32
00:01:27.150 --> 00:01:29.450
And I don't think either
of us realised quite

33
00:01:29.450 --> 00:01:31.014
how much work this was
going to be.

34
00:01:31.592 --> 00:01:32.459
For him.

35
00:01:32.911 --> 00:01:36.130
- I was expecting to cast it
one day, and then a week later

36
00:01:36.130 --> 00:01:38.640
come back and just pull the
bits out and: all ready to go.

37
00:01:38.640 --> 00:01:40.760
It ended up being three or four weekends

38
00:01:40.760 --> 00:01:42.950
and a great deal of
blood, sweat, and tears.

39
00:01:42.950 --> 00:01:44.990
I started off by making some moulds.

40
00:01:44.990 --> 00:01:48.723
So they're just bits of dowel chopped off
and nailed onto some boards

41
00:01:48.723 --> 00:01:51.700
with the right spacings.
I waxed all of these pieces,

42
00:01:51.700 --> 00:01:53.970
so they should extract, nice
and easily, out of the concrete.

43
00:01:53.970 --> 00:01:55.500
We then came to cast the concrete.

44
00:01:55.500 --> 00:01:58.270
We had to get a digger in
to spread it around.

45
00:01:58.270 --> 00:02:00.760
We then placed the boards
on with these pegs,

46
00:02:00.760 --> 00:02:01.950
pushed down into the concrete.

47
00:02:01.950 --> 00:02:04.680
I then came back the following
weekend to remove the boards

48
00:02:04.680 --> 00:02:07.260
and to pull the pegs up,
'cause they'd been nicely waxed.

49
00:02:07.260 --> 00:02:08.970
So they should pull out that easily.

50
00:02:08.970 --> 00:02:10.640
They did not pull out that easily.

51
00:02:10.640 --> 00:02:13.170
I eventually came back the
weekend after, got them all out.

52
00:02:13.170 --> 00:02:14.970
Then it rained for all of May.

53
00:02:14.970 --> 00:02:15.910
But we're here now!

54
00:02:15.910 --> 00:02:18.350
And once we're done with this
it's going to get screeded over,

55
00:02:18.350 --> 00:02:19.722
so I'll never have to see it again!

56
00:02:20.555 --> 00:02:23.630
Back in the day, the Welsh
miners would use goose quill.

57
00:02:23.630 --> 00:02:26.950
It was the only sort of
natural tube you could find.

58
00:02:26.950 --> 00:02:28.560
So they'd chop a piece of goose quill,

59
00:02:28.560 --> 00:02:29.820
fill it full of gunpowder,

60
00:02:29.820 --> 00:02:31.545
and then when you light one
end of it,

61
00:02:31.545 --> 00:02:33.938
it'll burn incrementally
from that end down

62
00:02:33.938 --> 00:02:36.070
and then squirt a bit of
flame out of the other end.

63
00:02:36.070 --> 00:02:38.580
And that's what they would then
put down each of the holes.

64
00:02:38.580 --> 00:02:41.000
What I've done is then
put some black powder

65
00:02:41.000 --> 00:02:43.350
at the bottom of the hole,
goose quill into that,

66
00:02:43.350 --> 00:02:44.680
tamp the black powder down,

67
00:02:44.680 --> 00:02:46.740
then a little bit of
newspaper to separate it out.

68
00:02:46.740 --> 00:02:50.060
The channels between all the holes
are linked up with black powder.

69
00:02:50.060 --> 00:02:53.920
The definitive source for information
about Welsh rock cannons is a book

70
00:02:53.920 --> 00:02:57.030
by Griff R. Jones called
"The Rock Cannon of Gwynedd".

71
00:02:57.030 --> 00:03:00.620
The book actually had a scale map
of Betws-y-Coed cannon in it.

72
00:03:00.620 --> 00:03:01.840
So I was able to scan that.

73
00:03:01.840 --> 00:03:03.330
Each hole's accurate
to within about an inch

74
00:03:03.330 --> 00:03:05.070
of where they were on the real thing.

75
00:03:05.070 --> 00:03:06.110
- So: shot one.

76
00:03:06.110 --> 00:03:09.296
This is an exact replica of
the cannon at Betws-y-Coed

77
00:03:09.296 --> 00:03:11.100
and we're going to fire it.

78
00:03:11.100 --> 00:03:15.050
This should be pretty much what
a visiting dignitary would hear

79
00:03:15.050 --> 00:03:18.900
echoing round the Welsh valleys
as their train rolled into the station.

80
00:03:18.900 --> 00:03:19.776
Let's go.

81
00:03:47.233 --> 00:03:48.650
I mean, that was lovely.

82
00:03:48.650 --> 00:03:51.160
Like, the steady glow

83
00:03:51.160 --> 00:03:54.043
as it went through and then
boom, boom, boom for each one.

84
00:03:54.043 --> 00:03:54.876
- Yeah.

85
00:03:54.876 --> 00:03:57.580
- I like how the wads of newspaper
just shot up after a while.

86
00:03:58.413 --> 00:03:59.670
- One of the things I
really want to stress is

87
00:03:59.670 --> 00:04:01.710
that building rock cannon takes skill.

88
00:04:01.710 --> 00:04:03.820
If you were to chisel the
holes in the wrong places

89
00:04:03.820 --> 00:04:05.500
or along the wrong fracture lines,

90
00:04:05.500 --> 00:04:08.950
like in this next test, well.
That could be disastrous.

91
00:04:08.950 --> 00:04:09.783
- For a rock cannon,

92
00:04:09.783 --> 00:04:11.770
you want something that is
going to maintain the hole

93
00:04:11.770 --> 00:04:13.570
and keep it there and you can reuse it.

94
00:04:13.570 --> 00:04:16.670
Let's say you got this sedimentary rock
in multiple layers and you bore that way.

95
00:04:16.670 --> 00:04:19.408
You're going to end up with
fracture and stress lines in the rock 

96
00:04:19.408 --> 00:04:20.650
where it could easily split apart.

97
00:04:20.650 --> 00:04:22.280
So I've cast some concrete,

98
00:04:22.280 --> 00:04:24.780
that's perfectly been cast
in layers just to demonstrate

99
00:04:24.780 --> 00:04:27.210
that if you make a weak rock canon

100
00:04:27.210 --> 00:04:28.750
it will not do the job.

101
00:04:28.750 --> 00:04:31.640
- Right. All cameras rolling.
How far away should I be?

102
00:04:31.640 --> 00:04:33.150
- About 20 to 30 yards back.

103
00:04:33.150 --> 00:04:34.693
- Okay, good luck.

104
00:04:47.020 --> 00:04:50.300
I saw the rock split and
come back together there.

105
00:04:50.300 --> 00:04:52.077
It was weak because that's
the way it's been cast

106
00:04:52.077 --> 00:04:54.700
but the amount of force
that bolted that outwards...!

107
00:04:54.700 --> 00:04:55.760
Final test then.

108
00:04:55.760 --> 00:04:57.510
What can we do with modern science?

109
00:04:57.510 --> 00:05:00.020
- Well, I think we can have
a few firework effects in,

110
00:05:00.020 --> 00:05:01.130
give it a bit of colour.

111
00:05:01.130 --> 00:05:04.660
We'll reload the 55-shot
Welsh cannon and try again.

112
00:05:04.660 --> 00:05:07.313
- Lovely. I can't believe
this GoPro's still working.

113
00:05:08.720 --> 00:05:09.553
It's still good.

114
00:05:11.413 --> 00:05:12.246
So I do apologise to the people of Wales.

115
00:05:12.246 --> 00:05:14.680
Not only have a couple of Englishmen
copied your historical artefacts,

116
00:05:14.680 --> 00:05:16.780
we've been bold enough
to think we might be able

117
00:05:16.780 --> 00:05:19.200
to improve it a bit.
We hope you'll forgive us.

118
00:05:19.200 --> 00:05:22.020
And if not, we hope you'll
at least enjoy the show.

119
00:05:22.020 --> 00:05:23.462
Right. Are we ready?

120
00:05:23.462 --> 00:05:25.361
- Yup. Good to go.

121
00:05:52.198 --> 00:05:53.031
- Yep, that'll do!

122
00:05:53.864 --> 00:05:55.633
- I think we improved on the Welsh.
I'm going to claim that.

123
00:05:55.633 --> 00:05:58.183
- Thank you very much.
I'd shake your hands, but...

124
00:05:58.183 --> 00:05:59.933
- We're not allowed to.
- Yep.

125
00:06:08.714 --> 00:06:10.161
This is a replica of the cannon of--

126
00:06:10.161 --> 00:06:10.838
[incoherent surprised noise]

127
00:06:11.362 --> 00:06:12.770
There's a hole there.

128
00:06:12.770 --> 00:06:13.690
There's a hole.

129
00:06:13.690 --> 00:06:15.003
Don't fall in the hole.