Penrhyn Castle

Penrhyn Castle stands on a rise between Bangor and the North Wales coast, looking out across the Menai Strait towards Anglesey with Snowdonia rising behind. Despite its medieval appearance, the building is a 19th-century fantasy, rebuilt between roughly 1820 and 1840 to designs by the architect Thomas Hopper for the Pennant family, whose wealth came from sugar plantations in Jamaica and the vast Penrhyn slate quarry at Bethesda.

The interiors are an extraordinary exercise in Norman-revival theatre, with carved stonework, vaulted ceilings, an enormous slate bed made for Queen Victoria, and rooms lined with paintings by Rembrandt, Canaletto and others. The Grand Staircase took ten years to carve and is one of the finest set-pieces of its kind in Britain. The castle is now owned by the National Trust, which has begun to address the difficult colonial and industrial history behind the family fortune in its interpretation.

The grounds run to around sixty acres and include a Victorian walled garden, a stable-block railway museum, woodland walks and views across to the mountains. The castle sits just off the A5 close to Bangor, which is on the North Wales Coast railway line.