From small seeds…
Sometimes it takes years for the intervention of the Historic Houses Foundation to bear fruit. A major restoration project underway at Gwrych Castle in Wales traces its inception to a small HHF grant.
Global notoriety
In 2020, a hauntingly atmospheric ruined castle in Wales became famous overnight as over 11 million viewers watched the lockdown series of ITV’s I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here. The towers and battlements that alternately charmed and spooked the audience belonged to Gwrych Castle near Abergele in Wales. Behind the scenes, income from the location fees also helped to increase the ambition of a restoration programme at Gwrych which had started in 2011 with a grant from the Historic Houses Foundation when parts of the building were in danger of collapse.
Medieval Fantasy
Gwrych is one of a small group of Victorian fantasy castles which ape the domineering castles built by Edward I in Wales. Building work began in 1812 for 24 year old Lloyd Hesketh Bamford-Hesketh who wanted to celebrate the long lineage of his mother Frances Lloyd, a descendant of the Lloyds of Gwrych. His taste ran to the medieval and the gothic revival main rooms were complete by about 1825. Extensions were added in the 1840s and again in the 1870s but the castle was sold out of the family after the Second World War. Serious decline set in when the building was sold to a speculative American hotel developer and left empty for 25 years.
The Castle saved
Rescue came in the unlikely form of a 12 year old boy. Mark Baker founded the Gwrych Castle Preservation Trust in 1997 but it wasn’t until 2018 that the Trust took over ownership of the castle on behalf of the nation. Over 20 years, the Trust has overseen the restoration of key parts of the main building and of the surrounding pleasure grounds and its many smaller buildings, which pre-date the Victorian castle. The effort continues, most recently, a £2.2 million National Heritage Memorial Fund grant will see the restoration of the castle’s main State Apartments, comprising a great entrance hall, library, drawing room, music room and a spectacular Italian marble staircase regarded as one of the Seven Wonders of Wales. The staircase was commissioned in 1914 from architect Detmar Blow by Lloyd Hesketh Bamford-Hesketh’s granddaughter, Winifred, Countess of Dundonald, a celebrated philanthropist and champion of Welsh culture.
From small beginnings
For the Historic Houses Foundation, a small initial grant has led to a total change of focus for the restoration of the castle from tentative emergency repairs to an ambitious major restoration programme that has attracted significant grants from major funders and gained public recognition for this extraordinary building and its inspiring history. As Norman Hudson, Chairman of the Historic Houses Foundation, commented: “Rarely has an HHF grant as seed money led to the emergence of such an exciting and successful project.”
