Penhryn Castle

Date of visit - 26/06/2024

Penhryn Castle was part 3 of our castle trilogy of North Wales.

Now it has to be said that parts 1 & 2 were more castley - if that is even a word. Conwy and Caernarfon had a history of conflict, of thwarting invading armies, be it Welsh or English. Penhryn though is something else entirely. This is a castle built from opulence, from money, and as the National Trust website is at pains to point out, from slavery!

Anyway, I am jumping ahead of myself.

As just touched upon, Penhryn Castle is a National Trust property, and as usual their disabled policies apply. Carers can be admitted free. The NT issue Essential Companion cards so a disabled member can be accompanied by a carer, although they are very loose on this policy and are quite happy to accept anyone as a carer (in my experience), whether accompanying a member or not - if the disabled person isn't a member they will still have to pay admittance, whereas their carer will go in free - hope that's clear. Basically as a disabled member you can ask for an accompanying carer card, that anyone can use, not just a named carer.

If in any doubt, check in with the National Trust who will be more than happy to advise.

Built just over 200 years ago Penhyrn outdates many of the castles in the neighbourhood. To me, this is more of a stately home than a castle - but hey, you say tomato and I say tomatoe, or something like that!

Upon arrival at the castle we were greeted with a compacted gravel car park, with a good selection of disabled parking spaces. ✅

The website then claims "a gradually rising path from the car park". Now it may have been because we were coming towards the end of our two weeks in North Wales, and were feeling just a wee bit, well cream crackered, but it seemed a bit more than a "rising path". ❌

We did manage to make our way up the rising path to the main entrance to the castle, with Little One in his buggy.

Of note here, buggies are only allowed on the ground floor of the castle, but are more than welcome as you go around the gardens and grounds.

Having already mentioned the opulence of Penhryn I have to say we, well my wife and I, were gobsmacked by some of the details and fittings in the castle. Clearly this was built of a time when people had no shortage of money, or what to spend it on. On the upside, 19th Century bling is FAR more appealing than 21st Century Hotline Bling!

Having left our pushchair outside, we made our way in - the staff inside were incredibly helpful and informative, explaining we could have brought the buggy in, to the groundfloor, but as we pointed out, we wanted to do the whole house, so left the buggy safe, outside.

Little One was then connected to us by his wrist strap on off we went.

Now, at this point, I should mention, whilst Little One is non verbal he can be VERY noisy at times. As was the case here, he decided to deliver, at full decibels, as we entered the main house/castle - got to say the acoustics were great, and fortunately nobody appeared to take any notice of our rather loud and lively visitor!

The castle was great to walk around, I'm not sure if I mentioned it before, but it is incredibly opulent... The money of the time, however it was earnt, was clearly lovingly spent - the living areas just drip in money!

Whether it be stained glass windows or servant bells, it's all here.

Fortunately Little One was able to take the many stairs and corridors in his stride, he was just loving those acoustics and was letting everyone know!

It's one of those strange things. When Little One is being loud I just ignore it, but my wife gets quite defensive, and a little embarrassed by the noise he makes. Me, well I love it. I love hearing him being vocal - I almost dare someone to challenge us, but to date, nobody has - it's almost like they understand... yeah, right!

Having finished with the indoors we ventured out into the gardens. It was at this point that our Little One's buggy gave up the ghost. The paths into the garden had, by the looks of it, recently been re-gravelled and was quite deep in gravel, making the buggy difficult to push. We had to do some running repairs after the Betws-y-Coed visit, and now the buggy was saying "I've had enough".

The old chapel area, middle picture above, was a nice spot to sit and contemplate for a while, before venturing off away round the rest of the grounds, with limping buggy.

There is currently development work going on around the stable block, creating a display of how the railways shaped the local area, in particular the Penhryn slate quarry, from where the Pennant family made their money to build this magnificent edifice! The cobbles here and the perilous state of the buggy, meant we left it at the entrance to the stable block.

In short, this was a good place for a child, who is happy to walk, upstairs and round many corridors. There are over 60 acres of grounds to let off a bit of steam and some nice places to sit and maybe take in a picnic.

Our Little One was happy to do this neo-Norman castle - though it may not be for everyone!

The acoustics are great though...