The Hotel is only a short distance from Chirk Castle
Chirk Castle, owned by the National Trust, is twenty minutes by car from Pen-y-Dyffryn Hotel.
Chirk Castle is a 13th century Norman border fortress castle with dungeons and towers and beautiful gardens, especially in spring. Improvement work is always being carried out to open up more areas for visitors to explore. See if you can find the pet cemetery, and don’t miss the dungeons!
History
Chirk Castle was built in 1295 as a defensive fortress to allow Edward I, King of England, to maintain control of the lands on the Welsh border. Standing at the entrance to the castle today, you can see many of the defensive features which have survived for over 700 years, but you can also see how the castle has been adapted later in time to be a more comfortable family home, latterly for the Myddelton family.(See below)
Chirk Castle was built around 1295 and completed in 1310 by Roger Mortimer de Chirk (1256-1326). It was an English fortress, one of a chain constructed after Edward I defeated Llywelyn ap Gruffydd (‘Llywelyn the Last’ – the last native Prince of Wales) and designed to help keep the Welsh subjugated.
Originally, it would have had an outer curtain wall; these days, Chirk is more of a stately home. After a chequered history, including a spell when it was owned by the powerful Stanley family, Chirk was sold for £5,000 to Sir Thomas Myddelton in 1595. Tom was a wealthy merchant, founder of the East India Company and supporter of New World explorers (or pirates if you were Spanish) such as Hawkins, Drake and Raleigh.
Did Charles I stay there? He may have done; there is certainly a room dedicated to him, with his portrait in it, and there is a date stone in front of Pen-y-Dyffryn Hotel recording his passage through Rhydycroesau two days earlier. Anyway, subsequently, Thomas junior changed sides and Parliamentary forces besieged the castle in 1659.
Charles II was restored to the throne in 1660 and Chirk Castle was returned to Thomas Myddelton. He died in 1663 leaving a 12 year old son called Thomas as his heir.
The Myddeltons continued to reside at Chirk Castle and in the early nineteenth century some restyling was done to create the Gothic themed courtyard frontage to the East Range as well as substantial landscaping of the grounds. Early in the twentieth century Chirk Castle was leased to Thomas Scott-Ellis who again landscaped the surrounding area including destroying portions of Offa’s Dyke and submerging another section under a great artificial lake. The castle passed into State care in 1978 and was handed to the National Trust in 1981.
