Gwrych Castle Estate
Gwrych Castle is a Grade I listed country house in North Wales, one of the first attempts at replicating true medieval architecture in Europe. It stands in 250 acres of gardens and grounds and has extensive views over former parkland including a deer park and the Irish Sea.
Gwrych Castle was built between 1812 and 1822 by Lloyd Hesketh Bamford-Hesketh as a memorial to his mother’s ancestors, the Lloyds of Gwrych. Upon the site was an Elizabethan house named ‘Y Fron (rounded hill) which by 1810 had fallen into dereliction. When Lloyd married Lady Emily Esther Ann Lygon, daughter of the 1st Earl of Beauchamp in 1825, the main building was complete.
Many important architects and designers are associated with the castle and estate. For example, the expertise of Charles Augustus Busby and Thomas Rickman was utilised by Hesketh in the overall design of Gwrych, and in particular the cast iron windows. Henry Kennedy was employed to extend the Castle during the 1840’s by the inclusion of a new bedroom wing, staircase and porch whilst George Bullock and the Craces furnished the interiors.
When Lloyd died, the Castle was passed onto Robert Bamford-Hesketh and his wife, Ellen Jones-Bateman. George Edmund Street designed the family’s chapel during the 1870’s and also several churches and schools for the Hesketh family. Robert and Ellen planted much of the present gardens with their enormous Monkey Puzzles and Yew trees.
During World War II the castle was requisitioned as part of Operation Kindertransport and in 1946 was sold by the Dundonald family, ending nearly 1000 years of continuous family ownership.
In 1948, the castle was purchased by Leslie Salts who opened it as the ‘Showplace of Wales’ for a period of twenty years.
Following Salt’s sale in 1968, the castle was operated as a medieval entertainment centre with jousting, banquets and markets taking place in the grounds. This also heralded a period of slow decline which saw the building shut to the public in 1985 and the final joust taking place in 1987.
In 1990, an American property purchased the estate with a view for creating an opera centre and hotel – nothing materialised. Instead, the castle was asset-stripped and vandalised to the point that its very future was uncertain.
The Countess of Dundonald
Winifred had been born an immensely wealthy heiress, the only surviving child of Robert Bamford-Hesketh. Abergele’s Gwrych Castle formed the core of this fortune, but the estate itself stretched across most of North Wales into Lancashire, Cheshire, Staffordshire and Derbyshire. Winifred had an arranged marriage to a Scottish nobleman, the 12th Earl of Dundonald, who later acquired international fame by leading the charge at the Relief of Ladysmith, during the Boer War. Sadly, the marriage was not entirely happy and as a consequence, the Earl spent most of his time in Scotland, whilst his wife remained in her Welsh homeland. It was this distinct self-awareness and passion for nationhood on both sides which contributed to the Earl and Countess leading two separate lives.
The Countess was an important patron of Welsh art, music and literature during the early twentieth century. Winifred, like her parents, was a Welsh speaker, who held an academic interest in Wales’s society and language; she saw herself principally as a Welsh woman and enigmatically, the last of the Lloyds of Gwrych. The culmination of her contribution to Welsh culture saw her being inducted as a bard at the National Eisteddfod of 1910, with the plume de nom ‘Rhiannon’, taken from the Mabinogion. To mark this event, an exhibition was mounted at Colwyn Bay in 1910 displaying various works of art and rare historic manuscripts, tracing the history of the Lloyds back some six hundred years.
Art and music were undoubtedly some of the Countess’ passions. During the early 1900s for instance, she founded a North Wales harp competition and recently, a medal presented in 1915 by the Countess for harp playing was sold at auction. Her poetic writings published in 1907 were well received and there were calls for her to carry out a biography of Napoleon Bonaparte.
Winifred continued her parent’s love of architecture, having witnessed as a child the building of many churches and public buildings in North Wales as well as commissioning great works of art such as the high altar reredos at St. Asaph Cathedral. The Countess herself donated the land and stone for the building of Church House, Llanddulas and employed the eminent Arts and Crafts architect, Detmar Blow to design the marble staircase at Gwrych.
During World War One she founded two military hospitals entirely at her own expense which served to treat patients from all over the world – a fascinating photograph survives of the Countess caring for injured Maori soldiers. Recognition of this humanitarian work came with the honour of Dame of Grace, for the Order of St. John of Jerusalem. The work and plight of women was a concern for the Countess, becoming involved with exhibitions of Women’s handicrafts and patronising women artists, most notably the American Pre-Raphaelite, Anna Lea-Merritt.
An early protagonist of archaeology, the Countess was active with the Abergele Historical and Cambrian Societies, giving permission for extensive excavations to be carried out on ancient monuments she owned and then financing the publication of their findings. Politically active with the Primrose League, Winifred also organised a rally in the grounds of Gwrych Castle regarding Tariff Reform with Lord Ridley as a keynote speaker.
Winifred was an extraordinary woman for her times; she single handedly managed her landed estates totaling several thousand acres – a rare circumstance for a Victorian woman. In religious affairs, she was a leading light during the disestablishment of the Church in Wales, later becoming one of its founding members in 1920; her generosity was immense as she gifted a large quantity of diamonds and rubies for the crozier of the Archbishop as well as for the processional cross of St. Asaph Cathedral. On her death, the entire Gwrych estate was left to the Welsh Church as a bequest for its endowment.