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December 23, 2024
PI Global Investments
Gold

Lost City of Z explorer who fled Nazis to North Wales and bought hill farm with eight gold mines


On April 6, 1932, Paul Rycote de Shorediche Churchward placed an advert in The Times newspaper. It read: “Exploring and sporting expedition, under experienced guidance, leaving England June, to explore rivers central Brazil, if possible ascertain fate of Colonel Fawcett.”

Col Percy Fawcett was the lost explorer immortalised by Hollywood who, in 1925, set off in search of the Lost City of Z, a legendary jungle city said to be “covered in gold”. The 1932 expedition aimed to find what happened to him by travelling into the Amazon rainforest where “no white man has been”.




Amongst the applicants was Peter Fleming, brother of Ian, author of the James Bond novels. Another was a former farm labourer who would later flee to North Wales to escape the Nazis and buy a hill farm sitting on eight gold mines.

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This was father-of-five Arthur “Alf” Humphries, then aged 30, who was born in rural Gloucestershire and moved to Birmingham to find work after leaving school at 14. Buying a hill farm in the Wnion valley, Gwynedd, he stayed there for 21 years before moving to Wrexham county where he ran a garage and haulage business.

According to granddaughter Joyce Gibbard, Alf began thinking about a move to Wales because he feared the consequences of staying in the English Midlands. “He started purchasing negotiations earlier than 1944 because he was afraid the UK would be defeated in WW2,” she said. “He wanted to be as far away as possible should that happen – and to be self-sufficient as far as possible.”

What happened to Alf is a curious tale of endeavour, fortitude and quite a bit of wheeler-dealing. His five children were schooled in Gwynedd and some descendants remain in the region, now proudly Welsh. Last month, several braved a return trip to Alf’s farm for the first time in 59 years to rekindle memories of a place that played a key role in such a remarkable life.



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