Gwrych Castle

Gwrych Castle is a sprawling 19th-century country house set into the wooded hillside above Abergele on the North Wales coast. Built between 1819 and 1825 for Lloyd Hesketh Bamford-Hesketh, the castle was conceived as a romantic Gothic Revival fantasy, with eighteen embattled towers strung along the ridge and views stretching out across the Irish Sea. Its silhouette is one of the most striking on the Welsh coastline, visible from the A55 and from passing trains on the North Wales main line.

The estate covers roughly 250 acres of gardens, woodland and parkland, with marked walking trails leading past the gatehouse, the formal gardens and the ruined outer walls. After decades of dereliction, the Gwrych Castle Preservation Trust has been steadily stabilising the structure and reopening rooms to the public. Visitors can explore the restored melon house, the walled gardens and parts of the main range, with interpretation panels covering the Hesketh family, the wartime use of the castle as a refuge for Jewish child evacuees in 1939, and the more recent restoration work.

Gwrych enjoyed a fresh wave of public attention as the filming location for the 2020 and 2021 series of I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!, and the castle now offers guided tours, woodland walks and a regular programme of events. The nearest station is Abergele and Pensarn, about a mile away along the coast road.