Friday 27 July 2018

Friday Night at Tyddyn Llan

The 'Gourmet Friday' 7-Course Tasting Menu at a Michelin Starred Restaurant

Llandrillo and Tyddyn Llan

Wales
Denbighshire

Leaving Anglesey we headed south-east on the A5 through Snowdonia and Betws-y-Coed to Corwen, the fine weather hanging on despite the morning's ominous signs. Near Corwen we turned south on the B4401 to Llandrillo, a small village deep in the green Denbighshire countryside near the banks of the River Dee. Llandrillo is named for Saint Trillo, a 6th century abbot of renowned holiness and a serial church founder.

North Wales (copyright OneworldMaps.com)
I have added the approximated position of Llandrillo south-west of Corwen

Tyddyn Llan is a few hundred metres beyond the village. Set in extensive gardens, it was built in the 18th century as a shooting lodge for the Duke of Westminster. Much enlarged in the 19th century it became the home of Llandrillo’s vicar when perhaps it gained its name which roughly translates as ‘Glebe House.’ Despite further enlargements at both ends of the 20th century it is a Grade II Listed Building described as a fine gentry house with C18 origins and good early-C19 character. As we arrived the heat wave and drought unequivocally came to an end. With no intention of standing around in a torrential downpour, I have no picture of my own.

Tyddyn Llan, Llandrillo
The picture is by Bryan Webb and has been borrowed from the Tyddyn Llan website (with thanks and apologies)

After learning his craft at The Crown in Whitebrook and Drangway in Swansea, Crumlin-born Bryan Webb left Wales in 1983, to hone his skills in Scotland and then London. He returned in 2002 setting up Tyddyn Llan with his wife Susan – who works front of house – as a restaurant with rooms. In 2010 it was the fourth restaurant in Wales to gain a Michelin star (there are now seven) and has held it ever since.[Update: Tyddyn Llan lost its Michelin star in Oct 2019. No one knows why.]

Bryan Webb on the cover of his latest book

Checking in was complicated by the Welsh National Surname Shortage. Two other couples with our surname had booked for that evening, the two men had the same first name and one of them was married to another Lynne. The confusion resulted in an upgrade of our room, but such is life; we coped.

Friday Gourmet Night

We had booked the Friday Gourmet Night 7-course Tasting menu. I have shuddered at the word ‘gourmet’ since we lived in the US in the early 80s and were bombarded with television adverts by a certain Orville Redenbacher flogging his eponymous ‘Gourmet Popping Corn’. Gourmet - befitting a connoisseur of good food and wines - should descibe every dish served at a restaurant of this standard (whether the customers are gourmets or not), but never ever popcorn. I might wince at the wording but once we had settled in the lounge and were presented with the menu I found my lexical discomfort easy to ignore.

The day's 7-course tasting menu - the delights to come

Aperitif and Canapées

Our deal included a half bottle of champagne. Some places might fob you off with cava, I expected an anonymous champagne, we got Louis Roederer. It may not have been Louis Roederer Cristal, that would have been too much to hope for, but it was still a fine Champagne - a pleasurable wine, deliciously smooth and mature as the makers modestly describe it.

Louis Roederer Brut - good stuff!

‘Canapés’ appears on the menus, but not as one of the seven courses (I counted!). Generally, I think salmon is overrated, but this mouthful of soft salmon mousse wrapped in raw salmon was a delightful combination of textures and complimented the champagne like they were made for each other. A quail’s egg is just an egg, albeit a small one, top quality sausage meat is still just sausage meat, so the tiny scotch egg was just a scotch egg. The leek and laverbread tart – what else to eat in Wales - was a marvel, two potentially competing strong flavours in total harmony. I was less impressed with the fish cake, nicely crisp outside, luxuriously soft inside but just lacking in something, I would have liked a little more dill (or was it fennel?)

We moved through to the dining room.

Course 1: Gazpacho

Lynne is usually dismissive of Gazpacho – take it away and warm it up, being her usual unoriginal comment. This gazpacho was a game changer, almost. Thick and smooth yet with a crunch of cucumber and slight spiciness, the fresh Mediterranean flavours won me over completely, and I think Lynne was beginning to bend.

Course 2: Langoustine

The dish did not look special, hidden beneath fronds of rocket but the langoustines were perfectly cooked and so fresh they were sweet, the avocado was a richly smooth guacamole, the dressing set everything off perfectly and the fennel, a soft, folded strip of vegetable lying beneath the langoustine adding delicious aniseed notes. I have not eaten anything so good for ages - though I doubt I would have missed the slice of radish had it been absent.

Dressed Langoustine, Tyddyn Llan

The first of the matched wines was Domaine de Gerbeaux, Mâcon Soloutré. An unoaked chardonnay, refreshingly citrusy with ripeness balancing its bright acidity. It was a fine accompaniment.

Course 3: Stuffed Courgette Flower

After the delights of the langoustine this was a descent to earth. The big, bright yellow flower stuffed with mozzarella and deep fried in the lightest, crunchiest tempura batter lacked variety and juxtaposition of flavours and there was just too much of it. I would have liked less of the flower and more of the tomato and basil sauce.

The matching wine, Villa Huesgen’s ‘By the Glass’ Riesling, comes from an unspecified corner of Germany but works hard not to appear German. The wine list calls it a dry modern Riesling, immensely appealing and approachable. I suspect ‘approachable’ means ‘there is nothing here for anybody to dislike, because there is nothing.’ After trying to drown the world in third-rate Liebfraumilch in the 1970s German wine makers lost their confidence but this, with its awful name, is not the way back.

Course 4: Scallops

We disagreed about this one. This was a busy dish with cauliflower purée, little strips of pancetta cooked to crispness and an assertive caper and raisin dressing. Lynne, a scallop purist who holds that anything other than a light bouillon is a distraction, thought the scallop had been ‘mucked about.’ Being less inclined to regard the scallop as underwater royalty I thought the combinations had been well thought out and brilliantly executed. I liked it a lot.

The Verdejo/Sauvignon from Bodegas Naia in Rueda worked well enough with this. I am not a great Verdejo fan, but the 15% Sauvignon Blanc redeemed it with a becoming creaminess.

Course 5: Roast Plaice

Fish is not often roasted, and I suspect that roasting a thin, delicate fillet of plaice requires precisely judged temperature and timings. This was a triumph. Sprinkled with samphire it sat in a yin and yang of laverbread sauce and beurre blanc. The evening’s second appearance of laverbread was by no means unwelcome, and the beurre blanc sauce was so sumptuous I could have eaten a bowl of it with a spoon – though it would have done me no good.

Roast plaice with laverbread sauce, Tyddyn Llan

There is nothing a piece of plaice likes more than a good Muscadet, and Château de Poyet Muscadet Sèvre et Maine sur lie is a good Muscadet.

Course 6: Lamb or Duck

The courses hitherto had been small, though not tiny and we thought we were pacing ourselves well until the meat course arrived. In a review earlier this year Wales Online observed if you think fine dining is about tiny portions in the middle of big plates, then you haven't eaten here yet. Thirty years ago the appearance of a full sized main course at this stage would have been fine but as we progress through our sixties….

The Gosnargh duck was as good as they come, the pink breast sliced almost as thinly as bacon, the faggot intensely offal-y. Confit worked its magic, turning a humble spud into something delightful, and the port and blackcurrant sauce was rich if hardly ground-breaking. I do not see the point of celeriac purée, but maybe that is my problem.

The Patagonian Pinot Noir, pale almost rosé, and more Alsace-like than Burgundian was short of varietal flavour. Although I welcome the celebration of the long-standing links between Wales and Patagonia, the wine was disappointing.

Lynne struggled with her lamb, finding the cutlets delicious but running out of steam on the slow-cooked breast. There was no doubting the quality, but the quantity was too daunting at this stage of the evening.

Lynne and her lamb. Tyddyn Llan - that is a substantial plateful for course 6 of 7

The accompanying Rioja from Bodegas LAN, was as enjoyable as always – though as this was the climax I felt a reserva would have been more appropriate than a crianza.

Course 7: Cherry Soup with Cinnamon Ice Cream

For dessert I chose cherry soup with cinnamon ice cream, not because I imagined cherry soup would be anything more than a bowl of cherries, but for the ice cream. I thought the cinnamon understated (I prefer it that way) but the texture was something else. Even the best commercial ice creams are miles away from the luxury of real ice cream made by real people in a kitchen not a factory.

Cherry soup and cinnamon ice cream, Tyddyn Llan

Ice cream and wine are reluctant companions and I would not normally drink Moscato d'Asti but it was a revelation. Low in alcohol and semi-sparkling it was a surprisingly complex fruit salad of a wine and a fine accompaniment. Lynne opted out of the dessert but drank her Recioto della Valpolicella. Valpolicella made from partially dried grapes is usual vinified dry and strong. The sweet version - intensely and lusciously sweet - was new to me.

A fine evening finished in the lounge with coffee, petit fours (I still had one a small corner unstuffed) and a glass of grappa.

In 2012 Bryan Webb toldWales OnLine I have a Michelin star but wouldn’t class myself as a Michelin star chef….it makes people expect really fancy and technical food but that’s not for me. I do good honest food on a plate and by luck….we got a Michelin star but I have been cooking the same food for 22 years. I haven’t really changed anything [though] the ingredients might have got better.”

I would quibble with ‘by luck’ I suspect it was more to do with skill and hard work and as for being ‘technical’, top-quality ingredients beautifully cooked are good enough for me (and the Michelin inspectors).

I was a little disappointed with the wines; highlights were the Roederer Champagne at the start and (to my surprise) the Moscato d’Asti with dessert, but there were few peaks between. And if matching wines are offered for each course I want to see them on the menu with full details; I like to know my Muscadet comes from Château de Poyet and that I should not have had to do the checking, it should have been on the menu.

Tyddyn Llan was the fourth of Wales’ seven Michelin starred restaurants we have eaten at. At this level all should have at least one stand-out dish but Tyddyn Llan impressed me by having three, the langoustine, the plaice and the scallops (though Lynne would disagree about the scallops). Highly recommended

'Fine Dining' posts

Abergavenny and the Walnut Tree (2010)
Ludlow and La Bécasse (2011) (restaurant closed, post withdrawn)
Ilkley and The Box Tree(2012)
Pateley Bridge and the Yorke Arms (2013) (No longer a restaurant, post renamed Parceval Gardens and Pateley Br)
The Harrow at Little Bedwyn (2014)
The Slaughters and the Lords of the Manor (2015)
Loam, Fine Dining in Galway (2016)
Penarth and Restaurant James Sommerin (2017) (restaurant closed, post withdrawn. JS has a new restaurant in Penarth)
The Checkers, Montgomery (2017) (no longer a restaurant, post withdrawn. Now re-opened under new management)
Tyddyn Llan, Llandrillo, Denbighshire (2018)
Fischer's at Baslow Hall, Derbyshire (2019)
Hambleton Hall, Rutland (2021)
The Olive Tree, Queensberry Hotel, Bath (2022)
Dinner at Pensons near Tenbury Wells (2023) (restaurant closed Dec 2023, post withdrawn)

Both Sides of the Menai Strait: (2) Anglesey, Beaumaris and Plas Newydd

Anglesey Mussels, a Norman Castle, the Village with That Name and a Big House

26-July-2018

Wales
Anglesey

Beaumaris

After crossing the Menai Bridge outside Bangor at the end of the previous post we turned right and drove along the coast to Beaumaris.

Thomas Telford's Menai Bridge

Once a Viking settlement, Beaumaris became a town in 1295 when Edward I chose the coastal plain for one of the chain of castles he deemed necessary to intimidate the newly conquered and unruly people of Gwynedd. Its Norman name (lit: ‘beautiful marsh’) marks Beaumaris out as unusual on Welsh-speaking Anglesey where place names are overwhelmingly Welsh, though the usual pronunciation is better reflected by its Welsh spelling Biwmares.

Anglesey and the mainland of North Wales

Once a major port and trading centre and the County Town of Anglesey, Beaumaris declined in importance until tourism became a major industry and with 2,000 inhabitants it still feels like a small town rather than a large village.

Joseph Hansom and Victorian Beaumaris

We drove down the main drag, Castle Street, to the castle and turned back down the coast to our B&B tucked behind Victoria Terrace.

Castle Street, Beaumaris (looking very quiet as this photo was taken 07:30 next morning)

Victoria terrace was designed by Joseph Hansom, he of the Hansom Cab and Birmingham Town Hall, and built 1830-35. It was named for the thirteen-year-old Princess (later Queen) Victoria who visited Beaumaris in 1832. Its shape (which causes the sun to always to be at the wrong angle) makes it a difficult building to photograph and I thought it dour and out of scale for the small town, even if it is Grade I listed.

Victoria Terrace, Beaumaris

Princess Victoria and her mother the Duchess of Kent stayed for three weeks in the then newly built Bulkeley Hotel, another Joseph Hansom building. The hotel frontage on Castle Street looks small and a touch neglected,….

The Bulkeley Hotel, Beaumarais, Castle Street frontage

….but the hotel really faces the sea, not the street.

The Bulkeley Hotel, Beaumaris. sea front side

Anglesey Mussels at the Bulkeley Hotel

Unaware of the royal connection we decided to dine at the Bulkeley, a very short walk from our B&B. The menus of most (all?) of Beaumaris’ many restaurants feature Anglesey mussels – how could we resist? It may not have been the ‘fine dining’ that has graced recent wedding anniversaries (that would come tomorrow) but it was good, fresh, local food, sympathetically cooked. Absolutely excellent.

Anglesey mussels, Bulkeley Arms, Beaumaris

A picture of Nelson hangs prominently in the hotel entrance. Their website claims, the hotel’s builder, Sir Richard Bulkeley, had previously been a midshipman on HMS Victory at the Battle of Trafalgar and was the last man to speak to Nelson before he died. Maybe or maybe not. The National Archives tell that the Midshipman Richard Bulkeley on the Victory was from Herefordshire not Beaumaris. Maybe the Bulkeleys (of whom more later) got around, but they have been prominent Beaumaris landowners since the middle ages, though the family died out in 1822.

Beaumaris, Evening Stroll

After dinner we strolled along the sea front in the warm evening air, took the obligatory wedding anniversary photo...

43 years and no time off for good behaviour, beside the Menai Strait, Beaumaris

...and watched the almost full moon rise over Snowdonia across the Menai Strait.

Moonrise over Snowdonia across the Menai Strait from Beaumaris

27-Jul-2018

Beaumaris, Early Morning Stroll

Up early, we took a morning stroll. Over a thousand stone circles survive in Britain and Ireland from the Neolithic and early Bronze Ages but the stone circle on the grassy area between the Victoria Terrace and the sea is not one of them, being constructed in 1996 to celebrate the Anglesey Eisteddfod.

Anglesey Eisteddfod Stone Circle, Beaumaris, and clouds over Snowdonia

Dark clouds over Snowdonia heralded the end of the month-long heat wave. Some will be glad to see it go and I know the rain is needed, but Lynne and I will mourn its passing.

We walked along Castle Street (photo above), turned down Church Street...

Church Street, Beaumaris

…and before the eponymous church found this chapel converted into a home.

Converted chapel, Church Street, Beaumaris

From the ex-chapel we drifted round past the castle and back for breakfast.

Beaumaris Castle

Beaumaris is a bijoux sort of Norman Castle; it does not stand on a massive rocky outcrop like Harlech, or dominate the town with forbidding towers and walls like Caernafon and Conwy (the four together make up a UNESCO World Heritage site). Instead it sits with quiet confidence at the end of town, its small, neat towers and sturdy walls overlooking by a still intact moat.

Beaumaris Castle

An aerial view explains why historian Arnold Taylor called it the "most perfect example of symmetrical concentric planning." I do not travel with a drone, so I have borrowed a picture from Wikipedia.

Beaumaris Castle
(Copyright Cadw - and this is a link to their website as requested)

Plans for the castle were made in 1284, two years after Edward I’s annexation of Wales, but Beaumaris was not a priority and building did not start until Madog ap Llewelyn’s 1294-5 rebellion provided a wake-up call. Work then got going under the direction of James of St George, a Savoyard and the greatest castle builder of the age, but Edward’s expensive Scottish pre-occupation left the builders without funds and work soon stopped. It restarted in 1306 and was finished in 1330.

James of St George (by Ceredigion based sculptor/designer Sebastien Boyesen)
As there are no contemporary likenesses of James of St G and this was made in 2016, it might not be a precise likeness

Despite its size the castle looks impregnable. Attackers managing to cross the moat and break through the door or over the outer wall find themselves trapped in a killing field between two walls. However, the castle was taken by siege in 1403 during Owain Glendŵr’s rebellion and retaken in 1405.

Between the outer and inner walls, Beaumaris Castle

With the Welsh Tudors on the English throne Wales became less rebellious and the castle fell into disrepair, only to become relevant again in the Civil War, as it controlled the route connecting the Royalist forces in England and Ireland via Holyhead. Thomas Bulkeley, whose family had managed the castle for generations, paid a considerable sum from his own pocket for repairs and held the castle for the King, an act for which he was created the 1st Viscount Bulkeley in 1644. The castle was surrendered to Parliamentarian forces in 1646.

Inside the inner wall, Beaumaris Castle

In 1807 the 7th and last Viscount Bulkeley bought the castle from the Crown, incorporating it into the park around his house. In the 20th century Beaumaris Castle was given back to the Crown eventually finding its way into the care of Cadw, the Historic Environment division of the Welsh Government.

On the walls, Beaumaris Castle

We walked among the old stones, and through a series of rooms inside the inner wall including the chapel…

Chapel, Beaumaris Castle

…and ‘hands-on’ room where children are encouraged to build arches and spiral staircases. Lynne has always nurtured her inner child and although her arch collapsed her spiral staircase was first class.

Lynne builds a spiral staircase, Beaumaris Castle

Beaumaris Court House and Gaol (closed on Fridays)

We intended to visit Beaumaris’ 17th century courthouse and the Joseph Hansom designed gaol. The courthouse was a two-minute walk from the castle and we arrived to discover both it and the gaol close on Fridays – an odd day to choose, we thought.

Beaumaris courthouse (and Lynne checking the opening hours if the jail)

Instead we went for a coffee. On the way we passed a seagull, hardly unusual in Beaumaris, but not like this.

Seagull, Beaumaris
(or in deference to my friend Brian who is occasionally heard to remark 'there is no such bird as a seagull', it is a herring gull)

Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch

Heading back along the coast past the Menai bridge, we decided to drop in on the place with ‘that name’. We last visited in the 1990s, in November when it was just a matter of stopping in the almost empty station car park, wandering onto the platform and photographing the sign. On a fine July day the car park was stuffed - and was the small shopping centre new? We merely paused, took a picture and left.

Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwrndrobllllantisiliogogogoch Station

Originally known as Llanfair Pwllgwyngyll, the village is often referred to Llanfair PG, which is easier on the anglophone. Pwllgwyngyll looks like a 12-letter word without vowels, but y is a vowel, as is the first w (pronounced like - oo - in English) The biggest problem is the frequently encountered ll, technically described as a ‘voiceless lateral fricative’ – I bet that helps. The long version of the name, with five voiceless lateral fricatives, two of them consecutive, means, ‘St Mary’s Church in the hollow of the white hazel near the rapid whirlpool of Llantysilio of the red cave’. It was coined in the 1860s with the intention of giving the station the longest name in the British railway system and so attracting tourist traffic. It worked.

Plas Newydd

Nearby, surrounded by woods and parkland, Plas Newydd sits beside the Menai Strait.

Parkland, Plas Newydd

A house known as Llwyn-y-Moel occupied the site in the 13th century and by 1470 was owned by the Griffith family of Penrhyn Castle (a predecessor of the house we visited yesterday). In the early 17th century Llwyn-y-Moel passed by marriage to Lewis Bayly, Bishop of Bangor who rebuilt it and renamed it Plas Newydd (New Hall).

The current Plas Newydd, a substantial neo-classical country house, was largely the work of architects James Wyatt and Joseph Potter in the 18th century. Wyatt was also responsible for the partial rebuilding of Liverpool Town Hall after the 1795 fire (see Liverpool (1) Castle Street and the Catholic Cathedral). Walking through the park, we arrived at the back of the house and had completed the tour before reaching the front where a lawn runs down to the sea.

Plas Newydd, from the front

The Pagets and the Cannock Chase Connection

The house and later owners have a Staffordshire connection (see Cannock Chase: Venturing Further East). In 1744 it was the home of Sir Nicholas Bayly, 2nd Baronet Plas Newydd and his wife Caroline Paget. In that year Caroline’s second cousin Henry, the 8th Baron Paget, died without issue and his title and estate, Beaudesert near Cannock, passed to Nicholas and Caroline Bayly's son Henry. When he died in 1812 Henry Bayly (by then Henry Bayly-Paget) was 9th Baron Paget, 1st Earl of Uxbridge and 3rd Baronet of Plas Newydd. His son Henry Paget (the 10th Baron etc), was Wellington's Second in Command at Waterloo where he famously mislaid his leg (his prosthetic leg is on show at Plas Newydd). In compensation he was created 1st Marquess of Anglesey, because another title was just what he needed.

Meet the ancestors, entrance hall, Plas Newydd

The Marquesses of Anglesey lived mainly at Beaudesert. The 5th Marquess (1875-1905) was an interesting character whose extravagances led to bankruptcy and his early death, after which the titles passed to his cousin, Charles who sold off Beaudesert and their London house to cover the debts and moved full time to Plas Newydd.

Bedroom, Plas Newydd

Charles Paget made the last major changes to the house, including the removal of the crenellations.

Drawing room, Plas Newydd

Rex Whistler at Plas Newydd

In the 1930s the artist Rex Whistler was a regular visitor. Whistler painted portraits of Charles Paget (see the Cannock Chase post linked above), his daughter Caroline, with and without her clothes, (they may have had an affair) and his son Henry, the future 7th Marquess.

The young Henry Paget, future 7th Marquess of Anglesey

From 1936-38 Whistler worked on his capriccio, a seascape on a huge canvas covering a whole wall of the dining room. He played with perspective – Neptune’s wet foot prints lead in different directions depending in on where you stand – and some of the trompe-l’oeil effects are mind-bending.

Rex Whistler's capriccio, Plas Newydd
This is Wikipedia's picture, but it is in the public domain

He left a (painted) cigarette on a step, saying he intended to smoke it on his return. He never did return; he joined the Welsh Guards in 1940 and was killed in action near Caen in July 1944.

My photo of Whistler's capriccio
The dining room is not wide enough to photograph the whole thing, but this gives an idea of the size and also shows one of the trompe-l'oiel end panels. the cigarette is on the step of the (actually non-existent) corridor on the right.

Henry Paget became the 7th Marquess in 1947, donating the house to the National Trust in 1976. He continued to live at Plas Newydd, maintaining an office there until his death in 2013. It remains as he left it. It is not untidy, he said, he had a desk for running the estate and one for each of his many interests – military history, family history, prosthetic limbs and more - with the appropriate papers at the ready.

Henry Paget's 'tidy office', Plas Newydd

The Britannia Bridge

It was time to make our way south and east to dinner at Tyddan Llan in Denbighshire. After crossing to Anglesey on the Menai Bridge we returned over the Britannia Bridge. Built as a railway bridge by Robert Stephenson and opened in 1850, it connected London directly to Holyhead and thence by boat to Dublin. The admiralty insisted it should be high enough to accommodate a fully rigged man-of-war, so Stephenson designed a tubular wrought iron construction.

Stephenson's Britannia Bridge in 1852 - uncredited engraving

Stephenson’s bridge worked well enough until May 1970 when it was destroyed by a fire. The damage was such that only the piers could be re-used and as the admiralty’s height requirement was no longer relevant it was replaced by a truss arch railway bridge which opened in 1972. A second tier was added in 1980 to carry the A55.

The current Britannia Bridge
The two bridges are only a few hundred metres apart. This photo and the one of the Menai Bridge were taken from the same spot

Thursday 26 July 2018

Both Sides of the Menai Strait: (1) The Mainland, Penrhyn Castle and Bangor

A Faked 'Norman' Castle and the Wales' Third Smallest City

To Chester and Along the North Wales Coast

Wales
Gwynedd

Our annual wedding anniversary excursion into the world of fine dining encountered a hitch this year. Researching restaurants, I became so enamoured of the 'Gourmet Friday' seven course tasting menu at Tyddan Llan in rural north Wales that I overlooked a salient detail: our wedding anniversary was on a Thursday. After making the booking I realised what I had done and had to confess. Lynne suggested demanded we go away on Thursday as well.

So, on Thursday morning we set off on what tradition demands is a mystery tour, at least for Lynne. Google had prepared me for delays on the Nantwich by-pass, but it was stop-start all the way to Chester - forty miles at a woeful average of 29mph. The A51 is generally inadequate, but on a sunny day at the start of the holiday season it is hopeless.

Bangor, beside the Menai Strait separating the island of Anglesey from the Welsh Mainland

The A55 North Wales Expressway sped us up, but holiday crowds mean hold ups and the 100-mile journey to Bangor took nigh on three hours.

Penrhyn Castle, Bangor

Penrhyn Castle stands on a hilltop above the city. Superficially it looks like a Norman castle with a square tower and crenellated walls, but no Norman castle ever had so many windows.

Penryhn Castle

Ednyfed Fychan (c. 1170 – 1246) built a fortified manor house here and in 1438 a stone castle was started by Ioan ap Gruffudd but the current building is the work of Thomas Hopper, a prolific architect responsible for many country houses, including more than several mock castles. Constructed between 1822 and 1837 for politician George Hay Dawkins-Pennant who had inherited the Penrhyn estate from his second cousin Richard Pennant, the castle is an oversized caricature of its predecessors.

It was, though, the perfect spot for a National Trust sandwich and a cup of tea, and as the café was in the basement we continued to the servants' quarters, first to the cook’s comfortable parlour, then the brush room, where hats and boots were made to shine….

Brush room, Penrhyn Castle

…the laundry and the kitchen.

Kitchen, Penryhn Castle

From the servants quarters, we walked round the castle to the main entrance. Ednyfed Fychan would have appreciated the extensive views along the North Wales coast as an early warning of marauders, but for the Pennants - and today’s visitors - it is just a scenic spot, especially when the sun shines, which of course, it always does in North Wales (except when it doesn't).

Looking along the North Wales coast to Llandudno and the Great Orme

Courtyard, Penryhn Castle

…we went through the entrance hall, described by the room guide as a ‘covered courtyard’...

Entrance Hall, Penryhn Castle

...into the library. Maybe a clue about the intellectual ambitions of the Pennants can be gleaned from the presence of a billiard table in the library. The family owned slate quarries a little to the south of here and the table not only has the usual slate bed, but the parts normally made of wood are slate too.

Library, Penryhn Castle

The drawing room is relatively comfortable, the photo shows the area round the fire, smaller tables for playing cards were dotted around the room. North Wales winters are notably cool and damp and I doubt it was possible to heat such a vast space effectively.

Drawing room, Penryhn Castle

Outside the next room is a spiral staircase going nowhere, a sad survivor from the 15th century castle. The room beyond was dark and dingy and although sections of wallpaper and fabric unexposed to sunlight showed it was once much brighter, it felt an uncomfortable space. The room guide was keen to point out the standard of craftsmanship, and he had a point, my beef is with Pennant’s taste, not the skills of his workforce.

The main stairs presented Hopper with a problem; the Normans only had spiral staircases. As no one can make a grand entrance down a spiral staircase, he had to imagine what a 2-quarter-landing staircase would have looked like had it existed. Space did not allow me to do justice to his vision, but maybe Maurits Escher would have improved it by putting the stairs on the underside.

Non-Norman staircase, Penryhn Castle

Upstairs, as you might expect, are bedrooms and bathrooms…

Bedroom, Penryhn Castle

Harrison's Garden by Luke Jerram

… and up a spiral staircase, on the third floor of the keep, is ‘Harrison’s Garden’, an installation by Luke Jerram. In memory of the great clockmaker John Harrison, he has laid out over 5,000 clocks across a suite of otherwise unused rooms.So many familiar clocks, some still in use, others long gone from living rooms, were all chiming and ticking together. I found it strangely soothing.

Just a small part of 'Harison's Garden', Penryhn Castle

Descending the stairs, we left the castle and headed for the gardens.

Walking in the grounds of Penryhn Castle

The Pennant Family and the stain of Slavery

It is difficult to calculate how much George Hay Dawkins-Pennant paid for his new home. He used his own workforce, slate from his own quarries and timber from his own forest without billing himself, but a reasonable estimate is £150,000 (around £50m at today’s value). That is undoubtedly extravagant, and I would say he had more money than taste, though others may disagree. To be fair, though, this is not a house of Chinese vases, Louis Quinze furniture and Belgian tapestries; he sought out the best craftsmen, locally if possible, nationally if not and the money went back into the local economy. Nor is my hint of philistinism over the billiards table in the library entirely fair. Before he died George charged his son-in-law with buying paintings for the castle, and he was so successful it became known as the Gallery of North Wales.

But where did the money come from? George Hay Dawkins-Pennant inherited the Penryhn estate, the Bethesda slate quarry and the wealth that came with them from Richard Pennant. Pennant had inherited the quarry and much more from his father, his marriage made him even richer but he really made his pile in Jamaica where he owned six sugar plantations and 600 slaves. Worse, as an MP he was a staunch anti-abolitionist, in a 1788 debate he was one of only two members who spoke in favour of continuing the African slave trade – though 9 years would pass before that trade was abolished (and other 26 before slavery itself was ended). So, this house, in questionable taste, was built with money immorally made.

With these thoughts in mind we strolled through the extensive grounds to the walled garden, which looked lovely in the sun…

Walled garden, Pentyhn Castle

…and in parts suggested that warm weather is not that rare a visitor.

Some surprisingly warm-weather plants in the walled garden, Penrhyn Castle

Bangor

The city of Bangor is a five-minute drive down the hill from Penrhyn Castle. With 19,000 inhabitants it is the third smallest city in Wales, but as that figure includes the 11,000 students of Bangor University it feels somewhat empty in July (though the 8,000 permanent population is almost twice the combined populations of the cities of St Asaph and St Davids).

The pedestrianised city centre is marked by a clocktower presented in 1887 by the then mayor, Alderman Thomas Lewis (who otherwise might have been forgotten).

Alderman Lewis's clock tower, Bangor City Centre

Behind the tower is the Menai Centre, with all the same shops and shop fronts as everywhere else in the country. The High Street has a little more character, but not much.

High Street, Bangor

Bangor Cathedral or, as half the city’s permanent residents speak Welsh, Eglwys Gadeiriol Bangor, is down a slope from the end of the High Street. St Deiniol founded a monastery here around 525 and was (allegedly) consecrated the first bishop of Bangor by St David himself. The low, inconspicuous site of this low squat building may have been to avoid the attentions of Viking raiders but if so it failed, the monastery was sacked in 634 and again in 1073. The earliest parts of the current building are from the 12th century church built in the reign of Gruffudd ap Cynan, King of Gwynedd. There is not much from that time as the church was seriously damaged in 1211 when King John raided Gwynedd, again in 1282 when Edward I invaded and yet again in 1402 during Owain Glyndŵr’s rebellion. Most of the existing cathedral is from George Gilbert Scott’s 1868 restoration (to which Lord Penryhn donated £2,000). He planned a central tower and a spire but abandoned them when cracking suggested the foundations were inadequate – a more convincing explanation for its squat appearance. Despite the ‘welcome’ sign we found the building locked, so I can say nothing of the interior.

St Deiniol's Cathedral, Bangor

Bangor also has a ‘Roman Camp’ actually the surviving earthworks of a Norman castle, and a pier, partially closed at present, but we contented ourselves with an ice-cream at a High Street café and moved on.

The Menai Bridge

The Isle of Anglesey, in Welsh Ynys Môn is separated from the mainland by the Menai Strait. Until 1826 the strait, 25 km long and between 400 and 900m wide, could only be crossed by boat, or if you were taking your cattle to market – and Ynys Môn was and is a cattle farming area – by swimming. But the strait is dangerous - differential tides at each end caused swirling currents and lives were lost, not to mention valuable cattle.

Thomas Telford's Menai Bridge

Thomas Telford’s Menai Bridge was built between 1819 and 1826 as part of the trunk road from London to Holyhead, its 180m span making it, at the time, the world’s longest suspension bridge. It still carries the A5 across the strait, and we drove over it to the Isle of Anglesey and the next post….