another day, another castle

Penrhyn Castle was a revelation today, as the 19th Century folly is quite stunning in its Victorian excesses!
I thought it was going to be heavy and rather Gothic in it's interior decoration, and it was! , but the effort,attention to detail and shear scale of the place is awesome and after a couple of hours exploring the dark brooding interiors I fell in love with the house even more than I did when I first saw Chatsworth House!.

Chris loved the fine silk wallpapers of the bedrooms ( with Queen Victoria's one ton slate bed lurking there) and some of the artwork hanging in the Staterooms ( Van Dyke, Rubins ,Canaletto and Rembrandt) where as Nigel and I loved the servant Kitchen and beautifully restored house keeper's sitting room.

We did not have a huge amount of time to walk
the grounds but we did manage to explore the walled garden which was beautifully set out. It was a nice bookend to a nice weekend, and as Nige got his train back to Sheffield on time, we had enough time to walk the dogs again on the beach

Nige and Chris (posing!)