As National Trust members, it’s inevitable that we would end up at a National Trust property in Wales. We didn’t manage to squeeze in Pehrhyn Castle on last year’s holiday, but we made an afternoon visit this year.
If you approach Bangor going west on the A55 North Wales Expressway, you get a decent view of Penrhyn Castle on your right. Unlike the other castles in North Wales that make up the UNESCO World Heritage Site, Penrhyn Castle isn’t a fortified castle and mostly dates from the early 19th Century.
History of Penrhyn Castle
There has been a country house on the site of Penrhyn Castle at least since the 15th Century, built by Gwilym ap Griffith who assisted Owain Glyndŵr in the Glyndŵr rebellion. By the 18th Century, the estate had come into the ownership of the Pennant family, and Richard Pennant commissioned an architect to remodel the house as a Gothic villa.
In the early 19th Century, Richard’s heir George Hay Dawkins-Pennant went further and commissioned the castle we see today. On the outside, it resembles the aforementioned fortified castles, but inside it is a very opulent country house with intricately carved stonework, plasterwork and wood carvings. At the time, this cost £123,000, which is equivalent to over £100 million today, and it shows.
The Pennant family earned their vast fortunes primarily via two means: slate, and slavery. The slate came from the nearby Penrhyn Quarry, now also a Zip World attraction like the Llechwedd Slate Caverns. It, and almost all the surrounding land viewable from the castle, were owned by the Pennant family, many of whom spent time as representatives in the Houses of Parliament as either MPs or Lords.
Meanwhile, across the Atlantic Ocean, the Pennant family owned multiple slave plantations in Jamaica. Slavery was abolished in 1834, against the Pennants’ wishes who were outspoken against abolition. Compensation was paid to the slave owners (not the now-freed slaves themselves); the Pennants owned 764 slaves, and received £14,683 compensation (around £18 million today). In 1951, ownership of Penrhyn Castle passed to the National Trust, so it has been in their care for 75 years.
It’s the National Trust’s largest property in Wales, and has been heated by biomass since 2016.
Inside Penrhyn Castle
A visit to the castle itself starts off in the Great Hall, which is huge and resembles a church, thanks to its stained glass windows, vaulted ceilings and stone carving. It’s very much a show of wealth and power, and indicative of the sorts of guests that the Pennant family sought to entertain. Queen Victoria stayed there in 1832, before the castle was completely finished, and in later years, William Gladstone visited.
You also get to see the library, with its carved wooden ceilings as an entertaining space primarily for male guests. There’s a huge dining room, and an opportunity to see many of the bedrooms.
It’s perhaps unsurprising that the castle became Grade I listed in 1966.
The castle also used to house a small museum about narrow gauge railways, which are common in Wales. That has now closed, but one of the steam locomotives remains, and the space is due to be redeveloped into a museum that has a wider focus on North Wales’ industrial past.
The Gardens
I would love to tell you about the gardens at Penrhyn Castle, but our visit was just in the afternoon and so we didn’t have time to see them. After we had been around the house, and given our ten-year-old time to burn off energy in the adventure playground, there wasn’t time.
The walled garden is a short walk from the castle itself, and you can read about it on the National Trust’s web site.
Accessibility
Penrhyn Castle is mostly on flat ground, and there is step free access to the ground floor of the castle and the rest of the grounds – presumably including the gardens. The upper floors of the castle are only accessible by climbing stairs; visitors unable to manage these can instead watch a video tour. Standard disabled toilets are available; the nearest Changing Places toilet is a short distance away at Bangor University.
There’s a large, free car park on site, which includes four Standard-Plus AC chargers for electric vehicles, on the RAW Power network. The half-hourly number 5 bus from Llandudno to Bangor calls at the end of the driveway, from which it’s a mostly flat one mile walk to the main entrance. The nearest railway station is in Bangor, which to the south of the city centre and is around 500 metres from the bus station.
Being one of the National Trust’s upper tier properties, entry prices are a little higher than some (currently £18 per adult) but National Trust members get in free. If you’re not a member, it’s worth keeping an eye on Money Saving Expert’s Deals Page, as you can sometimes get free or discounted day passes, and Octopus Energy often give away discounted passes to their customers through their Octoplus Rewards programme.
There’s a café in the castle – again, we didn’t visit, but I imagine it’ll be standard National Trust café food, including their Scone of the Month. I also didn’t check for Wi-Fi, as I had a decent enough phone signal, but usually this is available in National Trust cafés and ticket kiosks and is typically free.
