THE HISTORY
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(condensed from numerous articles)
...
Gwrych Castle is NOT a true
castle at all, rather it is a Victorian folly built between 1812 and 1822
by Lloyd Hesketh Bamford-Hesketh as a memorial to his mother’s ancestors,
the Lloyds of Gwrych. There had originally been an Elizabethan house on
the site named ‘Y Fron (rounded hill) but by 1810 it had become totally
derelict. By the time Lloyd married Lady Emily Esther Ann Lygon, the
daughter of the 1st Earl of Beauchamp in 1825, the main building was
complete. Some of the foremost architects of the time were involved in the
design and realisation of Gwrych Castle including Charles Augustus Busby
and Thomas Rickman, and later Henry Kennedy was employed to extend the
castle during the 1840’s by the addition of a new bedroom wing, a
staircase and a porch. Later still in the 1870's George Edmund Street
designed the family chapel.
 When
Lloyd died the Castle passed on to Robert Bamford-Hesketh and his wife,
Ellen Jones-Bateman. Robert and Ellen planted up much of the present
gardens with enormous Monkey Puzzles and Yew trees though sadly the
gardens are long since over grown and practically unrecognisable.
In 1894 Winifred
Bamford-Hesketh
LEFT , as the sole heiress of the Gwrych Estate inherited the
castle and made it her official residence. She married Douglas, Earl of
Dundonald
RIGHT , who later gained great fame during the Boer War’s for his part
in 'The Relief of Ladysmith’ and he eventually retired after a most
illustrious military career. Winifred raised her children at the castle
and became involved in Welsh affairs, becoming a founder member of the
Church in Wales. During her time at the castle she employed Detmar Blow
and Charles Ernest Elcock to construct a highly ornate Italian marble
staircase and to renovate the state apartments.
When Winifred died in 1924 her
will declared that Gwrych should be bequeathed to King George V and the
Prince of Wales so that the Royal Family could have a permanent base in
Wales but her request was turned down so it was given instead to the
Knights of St John of Jerusalem. The Knights Hospitaller of which the St.
John Knights were one of several sub-orders, was also known as the Order
of Hospitallers. They were a group of men attached to a hospital in
Jerusalem founded around 1023. It evolved into a military order.
In 1925 the Earl of Dundonald
(Winifred’s husband) bought back the Castle for £78,000 and sold the
entire contents of the building a few years later in 1928 to recoup the
costs. One can only wonder what had gone so comprehensively wrong with
their marriage for Winifred to cut her husband out of her will!
 When the Nazi persecution of
the Jews began in 1930s Germany few people would ever have expected that Gwrych
Castle would become a refugee centre, but shortly after WWII began Gwrych
was requisitioned by Neville Chamberlin's government to house two hundred
Jewish child refugees in an operation that was named, "The Kindertransport"
LEFT
. Many years later in 2006 a group of those refugees made a pilgrimage back
to visit Gwrych Castle
RIGHT and BBC Cymru reported upon it:
In
an emotional visit, Osias Findling said: "This
place created a bond which lasted for a lifetime". Amid
tears, he said: "It's very emotional to see
this place again after 62 years and remember the happy days we had, and
to think that the future we had was entirely different to the one we had
imagined then". Osias and
his friends still share the fondest of memories during the saddest of
times. They recalled their Sabbath suppers, the dance every Saturday
night and the day one of the organisers of the Kindertransport was
married at the castle.
 Shortly
after the end of the war the children
went off to the new Jewish state of Israel and were settled there creating
new homes in what had previously been the state of Palestine, and once
again the castle was returned to the family. Whether or not it was the
stresses inherent in the society of post war Britain at that time, or the
far more likely issue of finance, is unclear but the writing was on the
wall for the relationship between the 13th Earl of Dundonald and Gwrych
Castle. In 1946 the castle and the surrounding estate were sold to Mr
Robert Rennie of Chester and a gradual decline began. In 1948 an
entrepreneur named Leslie Salts bought the castle and opened it as a show
home and events location. This scheme was so successful it attracted
almost ten million visitors over the best part of twenty years, even
earning the nickname, "The Showplace of Wales".
During this period two famous boxers, Randolph Turpin
LEFT
and Bruce Woodcock
RIGHT
, both trained here and many people came from
all over the world to see them.
Between 1968 and 1989 the
Castle had many owners and many different uses. The library was turned
into a bar; Winifred’s music room and drawing room were converted into a
large bar lounge and the enormous dining room into a restaurant. During the
mid to late
1970’s Gwrych became a medieval theme park with markets and
jousting shows taking place upon the site of the old formal gardens and
conservatory but the success of the earlier years began to decline with
the advent of package holidays and the ever growing phenomenon of the
"goggle box" in your living room. Gwrych Castle finally closed it's doors
to the public during the winter of 1985, never to reopen despite the best
efforts of a Californian named Nick Tavaglione who
purchased Gwrych in December 1989, with plans to restore the Castle
and create a five star hotel and opera house in situ. Sadly it never
happened due in part to legal problems and in part to planning law.
In 1996 several scenes for the
motion picture film "Prince Valiant", starring
Edward Fox and Joanna Lumley", were shot at the Castle, but after that
time the weather and the attentions of that foul breed, the New Age
Traveller, have reduced the
building to the point of near dereliction and there is now little of
anything left standing within the shell of the main building. In 2006,
after much hard work by the Gwrych Castle Trust, the sale of the castle to Clayton Hotels
was arranged. Around half a million pounds was spent on consolidating the site with a
view to converting Gwrych into a five star hotel and spa but unfortunately,
Clayton Hotels went into receivership during August 2009 and the castle
was put up for sale again. In 2010 Gwrych was
purchased by Edwards Property Management who, with the help of the Trust,
intend to continue with the plan for a five star hotel within the shell of
the castle.
A little "fun" in
The Sun...
On
the 22nd. February, 2010, the paragon of objective newspapers published a
report together with a photograph, supposedly of the ghost of Gwrych
Castle. Being as this "news"paper is so reliable and truthful, and never,
ever sensationalistic in it's reporting, I couldn't possibly fail to take
their word as anything but 100% gospel.
Be afraid, be
VERY afraid - here's
the report... ahem... cough, cough... Photoshop!
A GHOSTLY girl snapped at a ruined
castle could be the spirit of a Countess who lived there, experts said
last night.
A photo of
the building showed the mystery figure at a window as The Sun revealed
yesterday. Researchers think the spectre is Winifred, Countess of
Dundonald. She inherited Gwrych Castle hailed as one of Britain’s most
haunted sites in 1894. Locals in Abergele, North Wales, believe she fell
out with caretaker Bill Price and haunted him after she died in 1924. Bill
would lock up the library at night only to find it opened next morning.
Items had been mysteriously moved. Ghost author Mark Baker, who founded
Gwrych Castle Preservation Trust, said: “Mr Price and the Countess did not
get on terribly well. “Maybe their problem continued past the grave.”
However, former photographer Harry Moffitt, 76, believes the ghost is a
servant girl who died falling off a horse on the estate. He saw the
apparition on a visit to the castle 60 years ago and said: “I remember it
vividly.” Company boss Kevin Horkin, 48, took the spooky snap of the
castle, derelict since 1985, but only realised there was a figure at the
first-floor window later. Floorboards beneath the window rotted away years
ago, making it impossible for any human to stand there.
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MY PERSONAL
RELATIONSHIP WITH GWRYCH CASTLE...
In the period of post war
austerity in the late 1940s and the 1950s most people
could not afford the kind of holiday we take so for granted these days.
There were no Costa Brava package trips; no Aer Lingus prop-jet Britannias
flying out of "Ringway" packed full of terrified working class mums and
dads with baby on the knee, white knuckles gripping the seat arms when the
plane slewed sideways as it left the tarmac! No frantic round of applause
as the pilot touched down - all these dubious delights were still ten
years or more away in the future! If you could afford a week all inclusive
at Butlitz you were doing really well and my dad's wage as a bus conductor
didn't stretch that far for a little while longer! As a small child in the
late 1950s I am reliably informed that I went to Rhyl with our extended
family to stay in one of the thousands of static caravans on the many
sites which stretched for miles all along the beach at the side of the A55
under the eyes of the castle on the hill. Although I have no memory of it
I am told that we visited Gwrych Castle for the day on one of those
holidays. A little later at the age of 11 I can remember travelling to
Penmaenmawr to stay in our next door
neighbour's holiday cottage (they were posh, he was a solicitor!) and
seeing the castle as if for the first time as we drove past. But sadly we
did not go up to visit it. And then at the age of 21 I began SCUBA diving
and we would regularly drive down to Anglesey on a Friday night, dive
there all weekend then drive back past the castle on the way home. It
always fascinated me and yet I never paid the old girl a visit until early
June 2012. In the company of TJ and Carl, a new explorer, we trekked up
past the golf course and did our thannng. It's so sad to see this once
proud and stylish Victorian folly in such a state of dereliction and we
can only hope that the latest in the long line of plans to resurrect the
phoenix from the ashes comes to a succesful fruition before the walls
begin to crumble and collapse in the same way that the castle interior has
done but only time will tell.
Below is a
selection of the photographs we took on our Gwrych Castle visit...
To
view any of the photographs in a far bigger size then click on the
image of your choice and it will open in a new window.
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