Gwydir Castle
Gwydir Castle is a mansion ( manor house ) near Conwy in the county of Caernarfonshire in Wales . Major parts of the property are built in the Tudor style and date from the 15th and 16th centuries. According to the official list of monuments of the United Kingdom, Gwydir Castle is one of the Grade I buildings of exceptional, partly international importance.
location
Gwydir Castle is 20 km south of the town of Conwy on the River Conwy near the village of Llanwrst . The property is located on a hill above a river valley below the Carreg-y-Gwalch (Falkenfels) and today comprises 4 hectares of green space. The Conwy Valley offers a fertile plain here, which was controlled from Gwydir Castle.
history
The first recorded owners of Gwydir Castle come from the Coetmore family. In the 13th century, Hywel Coetmore was a henchman to Edward of Woodstock , the Black Prince, and commanded the long archers at the Battle of Poitiers (1356). His descendants also served as longbowmen in command during the Hundred Years' War between the kingdoms of England and France in the battles of Shrewsbury (1402) and Azincourt (1415).
In the 14th century, Gwydir was probably destroyed during the Wars of the Roses between the two rival English noble houses York and Lancaster . After an attack by the Lancaster party on Denbigh in 1466, King Edward IV of York ordered the Earl of Pembroke to razed the Conwy area in retaliation.
After the Wars of the Roses around 1485, the estate of Gwydir Castle came into the possession of Meredith ap Ieuan ap Robert (1459-1525), the son of Ieuan ap Robert ap Meredith (1437-1468), a descendant of Owain Gwynedd . Meredith ap Ieuan was a leading regional supporter of King Henry VII and founded the Wynn dynasty. He was followed as lords of Gwydir Castle by his son John Wynn ap Meredith († 1559) and his grandson Maurice Wynn ap John (1520-1580). John Wynn and Maurice Wynn were both sheriffs of Caernarfonshire and very wealthy. Maurice Wynn married Katheryn von Berain (1540 / 1541–1591), a cousin of Queen Elizabeth I and later known as Mam Cymru (mother of Wales). Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester , a close confidante of Queen Elizabeth I, is said to have stayed at Gwydir Castle.
Maurice Wynn's successor was John Wynn (1553-1627), who represented the county of Caernarfonshire as Member of Parliament and also served as Sheriff of Caernarfonshire. Gwydir Castle has been linked to the 1586 Babington Conspiracy , which aimed to assassinate the Protestant Queen Elizabeth I and bring the Catholic Mary Stuart to the throne of England , and the 1605 Powder Conspiracy aimed at during the opening of Parliament the Protestant King I. Jacob to kill his family, the government and all parliamentarians.
1611 John Wynn was raised to the 1st Baronet of Gwydir. He was followed in 1625 by his son Richard Wynn (1588–1649) as 2nd Baronet of Gwydir. Guests at Gwydir Castle during this time were Inigo Jones , the first important English architect of Palladianism and Archbishop John Williams , Lord Keeper of the Seal under King James I. His son King Charles I is said to have visited Gwydir Castle in September 1645. At that time, the landlord, Sir Richard Wynn, was treasurer of the royal consort Henrietta Maria .
After Richard Wynn's death in the English Civil War in 1649 , his brother Owen Wynn (1592–1660) became 3rd Baronet of Gwydir. Richard Wynn (1625–1674) followed him as 4th Baronet. He bequeathed Gwydir Castle to his daughter Mary (1661-1689), who married Lord Robert Bertie of Lincolnshire in 1678 , the future Baron Willoughby de Eresby and Duke of Ancaster and Kesteven . This family owned Gwydir Castle until 1895.
In the 19th century, Bishop William Morgan, the first translator of the Bible into the Welsh language , was a guest. In 1899 the future royal couple George V and Maria stayed here on the property, at that time still as Duke and Duchess of York .
Robert Wynn-Carington, 1st Marquess of Lincolnshire sold Gwydir Castle in 1921, after most of the extensive property had been sold in previous years. In 1944 Arthur Clegg, a former bank manager, acquired the remaining property, which only comprised 4 hectares, and started a renovation program with his wife and son that lasted 20 years. In 1994 Peter Welford and Judy Corbett bought Gwydir Castle and continued the largely faithful restoration of the house and garden. Judy Corbett wrote a book about the renovations that was published in 2005.
The building
Originally, Gwydir Castle was a walled complex, as the fertile Conwy Valley was fought over for many centuries and the property had to withstand the attacks of many local bandits. The Coetmores family was responsible for building the entrance hall, the oldest surviving part of the house. Meredith ap Ieuan ap Robert had the damaged castle rebuilt around 1490 in Perpendicular Style .
In the 1540s, John Wynn ap Meredith expanded the castle using Gothic building materials from nearby Maenan Abbey, which had been disbanded in 1538. John Wynn's initials are located above the main entrance in the gatehouse along with the year 1555.
Richard Wynn had the large dining room redesigned in 1640 with furniture, leather work, paneling, a fireplace and front door. The planning probably goes back to the architect Inigo Jones. Further additions to the building were made around 1830 according to the designs of Sir Charles Barry , the architect of the Palace of Westminster and Trafalgar Square .
In 1921, all of the furnishings in the historic dining room were sold. The buyer was the US millionaire and newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst . In 1922 the entire north wing burned down, so that the dining room would not have been preserved either. Hearst, however, found no use for the furniture and stored it in New York . Eventually he bequeathed the room to the Metropolitan Museum , in whose warehouse the fourteen unopened boxes remained until 1996.
After Peter Welford and Judy Corbett acquired the property in 1994, they furnished the interiors with period furniture. Some pieces come from Gwydir Castle and have been returned to their original location, including the dining room furniture even after two years of negotiations. In July 1998 Charles, Prince of Wales inaugurated the restored dining room.
Gardens
The historic gardens of Gwydir Castle are among the few in Wales to have received Grade I status on the Official List of Monuments . They represent an important example of the Renaissance garden of the Tudor and Stuart periods . The ornamental arches, garden walls and terraces are typical of the style of the time. Much of the garden was laid out in the Elizabethan style in the 1590s by Robert Wynn, another son of John Wynn . Robert Wynn also had the city palace, Plas Mawr, built in Conwy.
The 14 yew trees and three Lebanon cedars still preserved in the Dutch Garden (Holland Garden ) date from the 17th century . The original 12 cedars were planted in 1625 in honor of the wedding of King Charles I to the French Princess Henrietta Maria.
In the 19th century, a few new plants and plantings were made. The Knot Garden in the entrance area was laid out in 1828 by Sir Charles Barry in the form of a Tudor rose. The wisteria at the entrance were also planted in 1828. Since then there have also been peacocks in the gardens.
literature
- Judy Corbett: Castles in the Air: The Restoration Adventures of Two Young Optimists and a Crumbling Old Mansion . Ebury Press 2005, ISBN 978-0091897314
Web links
- www.gwydircastle.co.uk
- www.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk
- www.coflein.gov.uk
- www.castlewales.com/gwydir
- snowdoniaguide.com/gwydir castle
- news.bbc.co.uk
Coordinates: 53 ° 7 ′ 58.4 " N , 3 ° 48 ′ 4" W.