This is a much more recently built castle, 1800s rather than the 1200s of Conwy Castle. It was built as a vacation home for a very rich lord, rather than a military castle. Lots of stylistic differences some because of the time they were built, others because Conwy and Penrhyn were built for such different reasons...
The entrance...You are crossing a bridge here, but there was never a moat (not that anyone mentioned in my hearing at least). It is there purely for looks and to be impressive. Mission accomplished.
This castle is located in Wales and you can see Snowdonia National Park in the distance.
The interior of the castle is kept to reflect the how it would have looked in its heyday. One of the first things I saw going in was the grand piano here. Excellent start.
And if the piano alone wasn't enough, the second room I found was the library. Lots of gorgeous wood furniture, as much as possible they've kept the original décor.
One of the bedrooms open for the public to see. This is the slate room. There is a lot of slate in the area so lots of the architecture and furniture utilized it. In this room, the bed is made of slate. It looks very nice but...it doesn't sound very comfortable. Queen Victoria visited the castle at one point and was meant to stay in this room, however upon arrival decided she didn't like it and was given another room to sleep in.
Another of the bedrooms (not the one Queen Victoria ended up using). The wallpapers and fabrics are all the original ones. Some of the fabric has been falling apart and the National Trust has had to replace some but they go out of their way to duplicate the original exactly. So if it is looking faded, it is probably the real original, but if it is looking fresh then what you are seeing is probably what it looked like at the time...So some give and take here.
The dining room. Very ornate and impressive and yes, those paintings on the wall are huge.
There is also the servants quarters. Along one of the walls is all the bells, too many to get into one shot. It was a whole hallway lined with bells and their accompanying labels :)
A close up shot of some of the ivy crawling over the walls and a window.
And here, where the ivy still has leaves.
I did some drawing while I was here, but just small sketches. We spent more time here at Penrhyn but it didn't feel like it. I had just enough time to go through and see each area of the castle and then it was time to go. No time to go back and sketch my favorite bits.
In other news, I have finished the first draft of the script for school. Whew. Was getting pretty stressed last week. It is a relief to have this draft finished. I'll take a bit of a break from it this week, until my teacher gives me feedback. Time to dust off all my other projects I've got and make some progress with them. I'm planning on participating in NaNoWriMo this year. So in November I will be writing a novel as well as rewriting my script...Should keep me plenty busy!
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