Gwrych Castle
Encyclopedia
Abergele
Abergele is a community and old Roman trading town, situated on the north coast of Wales between the holiday resorts of Colwyn Bay and Rhyl, in Conwy County Borough. Its northern suburb of Pensarn lies on the Irish Sea coast and is known for its beach, where it is claimed by some that a ghost ship...
in Conwy county borough, North Wales
North Wales
North Wales is the northernmost unofficial region of Wales. It is bordered to the south by the counties of Ceredigion and Powys in Mid Wales and to the east by the counties of Shropshire in the West Midlands and Cheshire in North West England...
.
History
Gwrych Castle was erected between 1819 and 1825 at the behest of Lloyd Hesketh Bamford-Hesketh, grandfather of Winifred Cochrane, Countess of Dundonald. From 1894 until 1924, when the Countess died, it was the residence of the Dundonald family. The Countess left the castle in her will to King George VGeorge V of the United Kingdom
George V was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 through the First World War until his death in 1936....
and the then Prince of Wales
Prince of Wales
Prince of Wales is a title traditionally granted to the heir apparent to the reigning monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the 15 other independent Commonwealth realms...
(who later became King Edward VIII
Edward VIII of the United Kingdom
Edward VIII was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth, and Emperor of India, from 20 January to 11 December 1936.Before his accession to the throne, Edward was Prince of Wales and Duke of Cornwall and Rothesay...
). However, the gift was refused and the castle passed to the Venerable Order of Saint John
Venerable Order of Saint John
The Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem , is a royal order of chivalry established in 1831 and found today throughout the Commonwealth of Nations, Hong Kong, Ireland and the United States of America, with the world-wide mission "to prevent and relieve sickness and...
. In 1928, the Earl of Dundonald
Douglas Cochrane, 12th Earl of Dundonald
Lieutenant-General Douglas Mackinnon Baillie Hamilton Cochrane, 12th Earl of Dundonald was a Scottish representative peer and a British Army general.-Military career:...
purchased the castle for £78,000, selling the contents to meet the cost.
During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, the Government used the castle to house 200 Jewish refugees. Following the war, the castle left the Dundonald family and was open to the public for twenty years. It was called The Showpiece of Wales at this time, and attracted many visitors. It was also used as a training venue for the English World Middleweight
Middleweight
Middleweight is a division, or weight class, in boxing. Early boxing history is less than exact, but the middleweight designation seems to have begun in the 1840s. In the bare-knuckle era, the first middleweight championship fight was between Tom Chandler and Dooney Harris in 1897...
boxing
Boxing
Boxing, also called pugilism, is a combat sport in which two people fight each other using their fists. Boxing is supervised by a referee over a series of between one to three minute intervals called rounds...
champion Randy Turpin
Randy Turpin
Randolph Adolphus Turpin known as the Leamington Larruper, was an English boxer who was considered by some to be Europe's best middleweight boxer of the 1940s and 1950s.-Biography:...
in the early 1950s. In the early 60s it was an occasional venue for the famous motorcycle dragon rally
Dragon rally
The Dragon Rally is a motorcycle camping rally held annually in North Wales since 1962, making it one of the UK's longest running bike events. In the 1960s the attendance at the Dragon sometimes topped 3,000 riders"Dragon Plus" article in Motor Cycle, 13th February 1964, p195, more recently the...
and in the 70s it was used as a centre for medieval re-enactments, attracting tourists with such events as jousting and mock banquets.
The castle was last open to the public in 1985. Thereafter, it started to decline. It was bought in 1989 by an American businessman (Nick Tavaglione) for £750,000. However, his plans to renovate the building were not carried out. As a result, the castle was extensively looted and vandalised, becoming little more than a derelict shell, although it was used in 1996 as the backdrop for Prince Valiant
Prince Valiant (1997 film)
Prince Valiant is a 1997 independent sword and sorcery film directed by Anthony Hickox. It is based on the long running Prince Valiant comic strip of Hal Foster, some panels of which were used in the movie.-Plot:...
, a film starring Edward Fox
Edward Fox (actor)
Edward Charles Morice Fox, OBE is an English stage, film and television actor.He is generally associated with portraying the role of the upper-class Englishman, such as the title character in the film The Day of the Jackal and King Edward VIII in the serial Edward & Mrs...
, Joanna Lumley
Joanna Lumley
Joanna Lamond Lumley, OBE, FRGS is a British actress, voice-over artist, former-model and author, best known for her roles in British television series Absolutely Fabulous portraying Edina Monsoon's best friend, Patsy Stone, as well as parts in The New Avengers, Sapphire & Steel, and Sensitive...
and Katherine Heigl
Katherine Heigl
Katherine Marie Heigl is an American actress and producer. She is possibly best known for her role as Dr. Izzie Stevens on ABC's Grey's Anatomy from 2005 to 2010, for which she won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress – Drama Series in 2007...
.
During the period of Tavaliogne's ownership, historian Mark Baker
Mark Baker
Mark Baker may refer to:*Mark Baker , British animator*Mark Allen Baker , American author and historian*Mark M...
campaigned for the castle to be brought back to its days of glory—a campaign that he started when he was twelve years old. Baker was instrumental in forming the Gwrych Castle Preservation Trust, dedicated to ensuring the castle's future. The condition of the property was monitored by the Trust, who lobbied Conwy council to compulsorily purchase the property, eventually placing enough pressure on the American owner, who put it up for sale in March 2006.
City Services Ltd, trading as Clayton Homes and Clayton Hotels, bought the castle in January 2007 for £850,000, after it failed to reach its £1.5m reserve price at the 2 June 2006 auction. On 30 April 2007, Clayton Hotels announced a 3 year project, costing £6,000,000, to renovate the castle and convert it into a 90-bedroom 5-star hotel, creating 100 jobs. The project was subject to planning permission, but had the support of the Trust. Clayton Hotels spent about half a million pounds on its plans, clearing the site and rebuilding areas. City Services Ltd was placed into Administration on 12 August 2009, and the Castle sold by the administrators in April 2010 for £300,000 to Edwards Property Management (UK) Ltd of Colwyn Bay, who plans to continue the project to convert the Castle into an Hotel. In February 2010 a ghost was apparently photographed at the castle and featured in The Sun
The Sun (newspaper)
The Sun is a daily national tabloid newspaper published in the United Kingdom and owned by News Corporation. Sister editions are published in Glasgow and Dublin...
newspaper.
Books about Gwrych Castle
- The Rise and Fall of Gwrych Castle including Winifred, Countess of Dundonald- A Biography by M Baker
- Gwrych Castle - A Pictorial History by M Baker
- Myths and Legends of Gwrych Castle by M Baker
Note: The Gwrych Castle Trust Archive and the National Library of Wales hold important materials relating to Gwrych, including numerous original plans and various designs for the stained glass windows.