THE STAFF QUARTERS

Beyond the Breakfast Room the principal rooms of the castle were divided from the domain of the servants by two oak doors, each 4 inches thick; these, and the sharp bend in the corridor, would prevent the migration of sounds and kitchen smells from one side to the other. The domestic offices occupy considerably more of the plan than the rooms they were designed to serve, but the efficiency of their layout was clearly secondary to the need for architectural consistency from the outside.
At Penrhyn, as elsewhere, the life of the servants' `wing' was run to some extent in parallel with that of the family apartments and the principal rooms. A stritt hierarchy operated, with the housekeeper at the head, and the butler, ist lady's maid, Ist footman and ist housemaid following in order of precedence. Joining the household at sixteen, an undermaid (there were seven housemaids in 1883) would spend almost her entire time cleaning the staffrooms, gradually learning the work of the different departments, for instance by laying the table for the housekeeper's meals. Similarly, a young footman spent time waiting on the housekeeper and other senior staff before he could take on the same duties in the Dining Room.
In 1883, at the height of the Victorian period, the establishment consisted of 23 female housemaids, kitchen and laundry staff, and it male household staff, with 7 in the stables. This was not a lavish complement; at around this time at Kinmel ParknearSt Asaph, Denbighshire,there were 68 indoor servants. On the right of the corridor is the former Butler's Pantry (not open).
In the Jong corridor leading off to the right, both the original set of mechanical bells and the electrical system which superseded them are still in position.

These mechanised bells were linked by wires to levers in each room, mounted on wooden bosses carved in the Norman style. Even when the battery-operated electric bells were introduced their switches were similarly housed.

THE SERVANTS' HALL

The junior staff would assemble here three times a day for meals. Since it overlooks the entrance forecourt, the windows are set high enough to prevent observation, inward or out. Located near the back door, it also served as the waiting room for tradesmen. The castiron cooking range is a combined open and close fire double oven.

THE HOUSEKEEPER'S ROOM

Beyond the door in the passage, this was the principal office of the household. It is now the tearoom.
Each morning, Lady Penrhyn would meet the housekeeper here, and they would decide the daily duties. The housekeeper, butler and lady's maid had their meals together here and it was also the setting for discipline and dismissals.

THE STILL ROOM

Cakes, jams, tea and coffee were prepared here, and it served as the main kitchen when the family were away. It is now the National Trust's kitchen.

THE HOUSEKEEPER'S STORE

Linen and cleaning materials were kept here in what is now the tearoom annexe. Among its original contents in 1833 were: 4lbs Best Yellow Soap, 141bs Mottled Soap, Tlb Rotten stone (a polishing powder), alb putty powder [a powder of calcinated tin, for polishing Blass or metal], 6yds scouring flannel, 31bs Pot Ash, 31bs Soda, 3 wash leathers, T Plate Brush, 2lbs Poland Starch, Zlb Thumb Blue [washing indigo in small lumps], 2lbs Rush Candles, lolbs Dip Candles, 2 Blk. Lead Brushes, etc. etc'.

THE SERVANTS' BEDROOMS

The Housemaids' Tower provided the sleeping accommodatiön, in separate bedrooms, for the junior female staff. Strict segregation was maintained between this tower and the Footmen's Tower, at the corner of the stable block, where the junior male servants slept.

FUEL STORES AND BRUSHING ROOM

Down the stairs, between the domestic and kitchen offices, were, on the left, the Coal Vault (132 tons were consumed in 183o, shipped to Port Penrhyn as the return cargo for vessels carrying slates to the expanding industrial towns of South Wales), and the Brushing Room, furnished simply with one large table for the brushing of clothes.

OIL VAULT AND LAMP ROOM

On the other side of the passage are the Oil Vault and the Lamp Room where, through the window, you can see how the oil lamps were cleaned, filled and trimmed. Electric lighting was only introduced by the 4th Lord Penrhyn, and as late as the turn of the century, 194 lamps had to be trimmed and lit every day during winter.


CHINA ROOM

A right turn beyond the Lamp Room and then another right turn leads to the China Room where all the tableware used by the family was stored under the supervision of the Housekeeper. Entertainment on a scale enjoyed by the ist Lord and Lady Penryhn required a vast store of dessert and dinner services. Just one of the Minton dinner services stored here included 114 dinner plates and there was also a magnificent Minton dessert service.

COOK'S SITTING ROOM

Back along the corridor to the right is the Cook's Sitting Room. The Cook was perhaps the most important member of staff, given the ambitious catering laid on for visitors to Penrhyn, and as a result is given the highest level of comfort and a L 1 so per year salary. In this room he would prepare his menus and recipes, perhaps using Theodore Garrett's Encyclopaedia of Practical Cookery published around 189o.

THE ROYAL VISIT IN 1894

Between July ioth and i3th 1894 Penrhyn Castle experienced some of its grandest entertaining in honour of the visit of the Prince and Princess of Wales (later King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra). There was a nine-course dinner in the evening followed by an evening party for over 20o guests, which was rounded off with a supper at midnight featuring truffled quail, lobster, foie gras and every other available delicacy. Over the course of three days the kitchens had prepared over Irso individual meals, including 89 separate dishes of the greatest gastronomic quality, served to each of the 35 house-guests.

PASTRY PANTRY

Through the door can be seen plates of rich desserts laid out as if waiting to be served to the Prince and Princess of Wales and other guests. These are displayed on pieces from the 1850s Minton dessert service.


THE KITCHEN

This vast kitchen is shown as it looked during preparations for one of the banquets and a few of the menus are framed and hang on the far wall. The great roasting range was operated by a rack and pinion mechanism mounted within each hob. In front a large roasting screen protected the kitchen staff from the intense heat of the fire. Once cooked the dishes were placed in the adjacent hot-cupboard ready for sending up to the Dining Room. Beneath the windows are a selection of copper cooking pots, many original Penrhyn pieces. The large dresser and cupboards lining the walls were originally made for Alnwick Castlein Northumberland.THE LAUNDRY

The main laundry was set at some distance from the castle, by the kitchen garden. This, smaller laundry was for the cleaning of household items, and was another compromise on the original, more efficient plan for interconnecting wash-house, drying room and ironing room. Originally the wash-house had a solid-fuel boiling-copper but this was later replaced by a steam boiler. After passing through a box-mangle, all the linen would be dried indoors and ironed by the five laundry maids.
Around the Outer Court are ranged the Bakehouse, Brewhouse, Gun-Room, Soup Kitchen and Ice Tower, the last two being the most unusual of Penrhyn's outoffices; the purpose of the soup kitchen is not entirely clear.

THE ICE TOWER

Penrhyn is probably unique in contriving this essential country-house utility in such a prominent architectural feature. Ice would be carted from the frozen flood-meadows of the Ogwen below the castle, shovelled at ground level into the pit (23 feet deep and lined with brick, a better insulator and less retentive of damp than stone. Bundles of straw hung from the fron hooks provided further insulation.) The ice was packed in layers until the pit was full, the access door blocked with straw, and a wooden bung let into the opening at the top. Access for extraction was by means of the gantry in the upper chamber.

THE STABLE

When Samuel Wyatt came to design Richard Pennant's new castle in the 178os, the stables were ranged in an L-shaped configuration across the west front of the house. Although one of his drawings retained this arrangement, and another proposed to extend it to the north west, even this, neater, layout would not have resolved the medieval jumble whereby the washhouse backed on to the chapel and symmetry was impossible; above all, the proximity of the stables to the new entrance front was unacceptable. All but the chapel (which was dismantled and rebuilt further away )was done away with, and replaced by an entirely modern stable block extending north in line with the house. Samuel Wyatt was a great pioneer in finding new applications for slate and here it was used not only for the stall partitions, mangers and mounting-blocks but for the external walls, which were built of brick and faced overall with slate.
A comparison of the drawings shows that Hopper's stables were nothing more than the recladding of the same plan in Penmon limestone, with the addition of the necessary towers, all of which were put to good use. At the northern corner the Smithy occupied the ground floor, with the Gamekeeper's Room above. The stable clock, by William Platt of Stockport and dated 1793 (possibly reused from the Wyatt stables), and the Dawkins and Pennant crests were set up on the clock tower in June 1833.

THE DUNG TOWER

A third tower, with its spectacularly cantilevered bartizan, has a domed chamber at ground level for the storage of manure, which was barrowed up a sloping passage in the wall and tipped through an oculus in the dome. The gardeners would shovel the suitably rotted material from the external door; meanwhile, in the mess room above, the stable stall enjoyed the benefit of a cheap but malodorous natural heating system.
meanwhile, in the mess room above, the stable staff enjoyed the benefit of a cheap but malodorous natural heating system.
The planning of the stables, which could accommodate 36 horses, allowed a circular `economy' begining with the granary and hayloft and progressing in an anticlockwise direction through the stalls to the Dung Tower. In 1885, when Lord Penrhyn was running a stud at Penrhyn, the stall consisted of Mr Pickard, the stud groom (who was paid almost as much as the house steward), with two Tad Grooms' and a pony boy. At the same time there were three coachmen. Mr Pickard died in 1897 aged 83 after 52 years' service. The coach-houses are at the southern end of the yard, and the castle's own fire engine was housed in the north-east corner.
Some of the original loose boxes are now occupied by an exhibition, Penrhyn: its Landscape and People. This teils the story of the great estate which supported life at the castle and explains how the National Trust now seeks to conserve it. Upstairs the former derelict Coachman's Room, Brushing Room and Granary have been repaired and converted to create space for further temporary exhibitions.Along the east side of the yard, the arcaded covered ride has been glazed in recent years to provide accommodation for the locomotives of the Industrial Railway Museum established in 1965. The doll collection is currently closed for refurbishment. A separate guide to the Railway Museum is available in the shop.



THE GARDEN AND PLEASUREGROUND

The grounds of the castle which the visitor sees today are typical Georgian pleasure grounds, embellished with later Victorian planting and set in extensive designed parkland (not the property of the National Trust), which makes full use of the magnificent `borrowed landscape' of Snowdonia, the Menai Strait and Great Orme's Head.
Nothing appears to remain of the gardens of the medieval house, the Iones' of the present landscape seeming to date from the late eighteenth century and the house designed by Samuel Wyatt. Surviving accounts Show that there was much planting in the early nineteenth century at the time the present castle was being built, and this has clearly done a great deal to strengthen and enrich the original landscape design. Planting of this second phase included many newly introduced exotic species which, by late Victorian times, were celebrated as among the finest specimens of their species in the British Isles. However, Penrhyn's greatest horticultural glory was achieved under the head gardenership of Walter Speed from c. 186o to 1921 when the estate was famed for the unsurpassed quality of its kitchen garden produce. Speed's expertise in the production of flowers, vegetables and particularly fruit was second to none, and under his benevolent dictatorship Penrhyn was recognised as perhaps the most prestigious iraining school in Britain for young kitchen gardeners; the experience gained could scarcely be rivalled by royal establishments such as Windsor and was simply not available at botanical institutions such as the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and Edinburgh.
The earliest surviving plan of the grounds, surveyed by G. Leigh in 1768, shows the medieval house set in a landscape of small enclosures, many of them planted with trees. The approach to the house is shown striking off at right angles to the drive across an outer courtyard, through the stable block and up to the front door of the house. South of the

house is an area quartered by paths which was probably a formal garden. The rectangular area immediately north of the house, convenient for the stables and a plentiful supply of manure, is likely to have been a kitchen garden. Several other areas are described as gardd or garden, notably the site of the present walled garden (Gardd Park y Moch or Pig Park Garden) and Gardd Bryn Dillad (Clothes Hill Garden, perhaps a drying green), at the foot of the slope below the castle, roughly at the point along the drive from which the visitor now sees the first view of the Keep. Three orchard enclosures are shown an the east-facing slopes below the house (`berllan' or perllan). It is not known whether Bryn Luke (Luke's Hill) commemorates St Luke but it may be that the chapel was dedicated to him. There is no evidente of the grand formal avenues so often planted in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, nor of the English landscape style which was the height of fashion when the plan was made.
The plan of 1804 by Robert Williams, a reputable land surveyor living in Bangor, shows the landscape remodelled in the English style. The new house is shown with the stable block moved to the north. We do not know who was responsible for this new landscape design but it is clear that the grounds have been remodelled at very considerable expense. Pleasure grounds have been created around the house and the old medieval chapel moved to the north west of the house as an eye-catcher, appropriate in style to the new Gothic house. An interesting system of paths or drives has been created south east of the house, extensive belts and some clumps have been planted and other areas cleared of trees to open up vistas.
The landscaping of the grounds seems to have started as early as 178o; a surviving account states `paid William Humphrey and his partner for carrying young trees from Winnington (Cheshire) to Penrhyn being 3 Horse Loads: £2-2-0'. A sheet of notes enigmatically entitled Tlanting for Penrhyn '97' lists many of the operations one would expect for a landscape that had been some time in the making and was approaching completion; talks listed for the year include 'fill up the woods', `trim the tree clumps', `thin the wood' and `take away firs from the kitchen garden wall and plant other trees'.

The nature of the work and the language of the sheet suggest a date of 1797 rather than 1897 and correspond with a landscape that had been developing for some twenty years. The skilful composition of this new landscape, the way views from carriage routes and from the house have been carefully composed, suggest the involvement of an experienced landscaper; William Emes (1730-1803) or his foreman, and later partner, John Webb (1754-1828) have been suggested but there remains no proof. Both worked in Wales, and Emes created the landscapes for several houses built or remodelled by Samuel Wyatt, the closest being Baron Hill on Anglesey (1776-9).
The building of the castle by George Hay Dawkins-Pennant seems to have been accompanied by an energetic new phase of planting and landscaping. A letter survives from Messrs Austin & McAslan, Nursery & Seedsmen, Glasgow, to Dawkins-Pennant hoping for his further patronage:

We hope the trees sent you in 1822 & '23 are giving satisfaction, therefore we take the liberty of sending you a list of our prices for the season which we hope you will consider very reasonable; the Oaks, Sycamores and Ash are remarkably fine but indeed they are all in general very good; if you think of planting this season, your planting orders will have the shortest attention. We are sincerely obliged for recommending us to Viscount Kirkwall who has got a large quantity from us.

Thomas Pennant described the Penrhyn demesne in 1773 as `once beautifully embosomed with venerable oaks'. This implies that by that date the estate had lost most of its old trees. Catherine Sinclair, in her Hill and Valley, or Wales and the Welsh some sixty years later seems to bear this out, stating that `Penrhyn Castle ... wants nothing but well-grown wood to be perfect'. She suggests that 'the proprietor here might with advantage try Sir Henry Steuart's plan, and "jump" a few oaks from Richmond Park or Windsor Forest, that they may reign supreme among the thriving young family of forest trees here, most of which are completely overtopped by the keep-tower. ... The deficiency however, is one which becomes less obvious every year; for, we may say of the trees here, as the late Marquis of Abercorn answered, when complimented by George III on his oaks growing so rapidly, "They have nothing else to do."' Steuart was famous for his trick of moving very large trees around his estate at Allanton in Scotland, a feat which, although well-tried in the planting of Versailles, was little practised in Britain. Sinclair writes: 'the same set of trees used always to be obligingly transplanted ... and never was known in the world before such a life of activity as those unfortunate beeches led, — no sooner comfortably settled in one Spot than they were danced off their feet to another.' We do not know whether Dawkins-Pennant followed Sinclair's advice but by 1856 in his Journal of a Tour of North Wales, Julius Rodenberg writes glowingly of the `centuries-old oaks' of Penrhyn.
Few records remain of the further planting of the grounds by Dawkins-Pennant and his successor, Edward Gordon Douglas-Pennant, but it is clear that both must have been enthusiastic planters, adding many exotic and newly introduced species

to the basic framework of native species which had been established by the 1820s. The tithe map of 1841 Shows the landscape near the castle little changed in outline from the map of 1804; however, a very large area north of the castle, shown as fields in 1804, has been turned into parkland generously planted with belts and clumps of trees. This new planting was clearly designed to enhance the carriage drives through this area and to provide splendid views across the Menai Strait and eastwards to Great Orme's Head, but one of the first visitors to Penrhyn in 1832, clearly somewhat impatient with the notion of a neo-medieval castle, saw things differently: 'Not a single glimpse of the country can be caught from any of the windows. The whole is closed in by trees, with the exception of a space of grass But not a single flower is to be seen; because forsooth there were none around castles 500 years ago!''
The new castle required changes to the landscape made for the earlier house, not least the creation of a new drive to approach the castle from the east instead of the west. The old drive was kept for some years after the building of the castle and appears in some illustrations of the then new house. To the south of the new drive it is still possible to detect the landscaping of the woodland with glades and vistas, plus a liberal scattering of the then newly introduced trees and shrubs sent back from America and China by intrepid plant hunters such as David Douglas, Robert Fortune and the brothers Lobb from the 182os to the 1850s. Most of the exotic trees planted at this time have succumbed to old age and the fierte gales of recent years, but many were recorded in the 188os by Angus Duncan Webster, then Head Forester. Their sizes suggest that most were planted in the late 183os or shortly after the succession of Edward Gordon Douglas-Pennant in 1840. Although Douglas the plant hunter was not related, it is easy to imagine that Douglas-Pennant relished growing his namesake's firs: two recorded by Webster were among the oldest and finest in the country, probably planted between 1836 and 1841; the two which remain on either side of the Lodge do not appear in the lithograph of 1846 but were probably planted by Douglas-Pennant shortly thereafter.

By the time of the visit of Queen Victoriain 1859 the landscape must have been approaching maturity, all the planting enhancing the magnificent views as the landscapers had intended. Victoria recorded in her diary for October 17: 'After breakfast I went out with Col. & Ly. Pennant, our children & almost all the company & planted 2 trees in Albert's & my name. Arthur [her son, the Duke of Connaught] also planted one. The day cleared & became fine & I walked with our hosts & the 3 girls in the very fine grounds. The view on the sea with Pen Man Mear [Penmaemawr] rising above it, is very beautiful.' The Queen's tree, a Wellingtonia (Sequoiadendron giganteum, introduced from California by William Lobb in 1835) was the first of many ceremonial plantings on the Chapel Lawn west of the castle and is one of only two remaining. Edward VII, when Prince of Wales, and his sisters Princess Maud and Princess Victoria planted trees on a visit in 1894; others were planted by the Queen of Romania, Stanley Baldwin and Anthony Eden in 1890, 1932 and 1937 respectively.
Starting his employment at Penrhyn a few years after the Queen's visit, Walter Speed reigned as Head Gardener here for 58 years under three Lords Penrhyn. He was renowned as a leading expert on the production of fruit and flowers and as a stritt yet kind-hearted disciplinarian who turned Penrhyn into a centre of horticultural excellence famed throughout Britain. An obituary in the October 1921 issue of The Garden says of him:

As a gardener nothing that Mr Speed did but he did well. As a Grapc grower he was certainly second to none. Who that had seen his old faggot of Vines, pruned in his own inimitable way, will ever forget the monster bunches he grew each year, and their perfect finish? Most of his Peaches under glass he lifted and replanted each ycar and fed with new loam. I have seen them grown as well, but never better. His Fig trees on walls out of doors, to see them in fruit was a sight never to be forgotten. Carnations and plants generally under glass were well done. The old-fashioned walled in flower garden near to the castle was a veritable gern when in full beauty in late summer.

Speed was one of the original recipients of horticulture's highest award, the Victoria Medal of Honour, in 1897. Penrhyn's horticultural glory

continued under Speed's son-in-law and successor, Mr Kneller.
Angus Duncan Webster, a Scot like the ist Lord Penrhyn, was another particularly eminent employee of the Penrhyn estate, working as Head Forester from about 1880 until the early 189os. His interests were not confined to trees and his many publications included several written at Penrhyn such as British Orchids (1886) and Forest Flora of Carnarvonshire, More Particularly the Penrhyn Estate (1885). His records of trees at Penrhyn give a valuable insight into the planting of the estate. Webster went on to become Chief Forester to the Duke of Bedford at Woburn Abbey in 1893 where he was remembered as the last of the 'top-hatted, tail-coated foresters' who rode round the woods in the mornings and were driven round in a gig in the afternoons. He became Superintendent of Regent's Park in 1896, a post which he held until 1920 when he emigrated to the United States.
We are fortunate in having the reminiscences of some of Penrhyn's gardeners to shed light on the peculiarly Victorian social microcosm which survived in the country's kitchen gardens until the last war. Hubert George Scrivener came to Penrhyn as an apprentice when he was in his late teens in 1906. His diary for 1908 starts assiduously in January but peters out by the summer, when evening work or other distractions seem to have taken priority. The daily tasks of an apprentice gardener are set out along with lists of bedding and other plants. Even such a sketchy record shows clearly the accumulated expertise of the kitchen gardener and the precise attention to stritt regimes that was essential to achieve satisfactory results. Tasks for January include: washing nectarine trees; putting 6o pots of beans in; starting hotbed for cucumbers; boxing geraniums; potting gladioli; starting early peach house; putting strawberries in early peach house; inserting chrysanthemum cuttings; sowing 381 pots of sweet peas; starting fig house. So for the early months of the year we are told most of the jobs required to provide the family with a constant supply of fruit, vegetables, cut flowers and pot plants. The quantity and variety of produce are impressive: almost 3,000 bedding geraniums; early sweet peas in pots and late ones planted outside in twenty varieties; some 400 indoor chrysanthemums and others outside; large quantities of begonias, stocks and China Asters. There is also a list of exactly the same sort of slightly tender shrubs and climbers that we find in the walled garden today.
But it is the memoirs of John Elias Jones and Arthur F. Brown, both at Penrhyn during the 1920s, that most vividly paint a picture of the workings of the kitchen garden and its social strata. While Mr Jones gives us well-ordered data about the running of the garden, Mr Brown tells us amusing anecdotes. Many of there centre on, if not the flouting of authority, at least the tweaking of its nose; but, for all this, there is a deep respect for 'the system' and a pride in the excellence achieved that shines through all his entertaining tales. The `inside staff' consisted of between six and eight journeymen gardeners, one `garden boy', and the foreman, all of whom lived in the bothy, a fairly large house adjoining the kitchen garden. Most of the journeymen slept in a large room separated by partitions, each cubicle having its own single bed, wardrobe, chest of drawers and chair. The total garden staff could rise to as many as thirty in the summer and the Head Gardener was responsible for some fifty estate staff in all.
Lord and Lady Penrhyn were only usually in residence during August for grouse shooting and from October to Christmas for pheasant shooting, but during their absente produce from the kitchen garden was sent to them, each fruit individually wrapped and bunches of grapes packed so that they arrived in pristine condition, their bloom intact.

The gardeners' day began at 7am and finished at 6pm in winter with a half-hour break for breakfast and an hour for lunch. Summer hours were longer and journeymen had also to work on Saturday and Sunday mornings. Mr Jones recalls a starting wage of 8s per week (presumably after deductions for board), Mr Brown remembering the princely sum of 22S, which even after deductions allowed the occasional Saturday night out and a flutter on the horses. Writing in 1965, John Elias Jones comments: `Everybody had the opportunity to go through all the different departments, and although one is never finished learning in gardening, we had a methodical, stritt and wonderful training, and in 5 years it would be your own fault if you were not fit to go and take on more responsibility in any other good garden. There are many men in different parts of the country today who are very grateful for the training they received at Penrhyn.'
It was during Jones' and Brown's time at Penrhyn in the Tate 1920s that Sybil, Lady Penrhyn altered and developed the walled flower garden. Although the walls appear to date from the building of the Wyatt house, the garden was and remains predominantly Victorian in character. Lady Penrhyn altered the beds on the terrace, replaced the conservatory there with the existing loggia, and created a water garden in the area below the lower walk. The fuchsia walk, praised in a Country Life article of 1903 as 'the real glory of Penrhyn' which `would be the wonder of a county in England', ran down the path from the centre of the terrace. Although there are reports of fuchsias here during the last war, when much of the garden was turned over to growing vegetables, the walk must by then have become suppressed by the magnificent eucryphias on either side. The walk has recently been reinstated along the south-west side of the garden using Fuchsia `Riccartonif and the original ironwork.
In the 1930s and 1940s Hugh Napier, 4th Lord Penrhyn, established a rhododendron walk to the north west of the castle, which includes a very large group of Rhododendron yunnanense and a particularly fine form of R. decorum, which seems to be unique to Penrhyn. Since Penrhyn become the property of the National Trust in 1951, the garden has been maintained with a fraction of the original stall while keeping most of its original character. Severe gales have depleted the stock of exotic specimen trees, all too liable to wind-blow on the shallow soil overlying rock. However, a vigorous policy of replanting and renewal, and careful management of resources have ensured that Penrhyn can retain its nineteenth-century splendour for generations to come.




THE ESTATE SINCE 1808

From Richard Pennant's firm foundations the Penrhyn Estate grew in size and influence in all its departments in the nineteenth century. By 1893 it included 72,000 acres of Caernarfonshire alone, with 618 farms and 873 cottages in the county. 3,000 men were employed at the quarry, by far the largest such concern in the world. Today, covering 3,50o acres and worked to a depth of r,soo feet, the quarry is still the largest land-made' hole in the earth's surface.
Throughout the nineteenth century the estate, and the quarry in particular, continued to be the engine for economic development in the region, stimulating the growth of both Port Penrhyn and the city of Bangor. Roads, schools, houses and cottages, churches and recreation grounds were built on estate land, and often at the landlord's expense, since the income, from quarrying at least, continued to be more than ample. Like the other great estates, it fulfilled many of the functions that were to become, after the 1888 Local Government Act, those of the county councils. After that time, parliamentary reform, agricultural depression, the growth of organised labour and the rise of local administration all combined to diminish the influence of the Penrhyn Estate and its owners.'
lt is but justice to the successor of the Tate Lord Penrhyn to say that, along with the estate, he appears to inherit the same spirit for improvement', wrote the anonymous author of The Cambrian Tourist in 1828, and when Dawkins-Pennant took over the estate on the death of the Dowager Lady Penrhyn in 1816, one of his first acts was to agree with his chief rival in slate production, Thomas Assheton Smith of Vaynol, a system of common prices that would avoid the limiting effects of a price war and clear the way for further expansion. Assheton Smith's Dinorwic quarries remained a

Penrhyn quarry produced 40,000 tons of slate in 1820, employing 1,000 men, and growth accelerated over the next twenty years (especially after the repeal in 1831 of Pitt's wartime slate duty), under the management of James Wyatt, thirteenth child of Benjamin, whom he succeeded as general agent in 1817.
In the course of this period, the settlement that came to be known as Bethesda, dose to the quarry, expanded from the first building, in 1820, of the Independent chapel of that name. Slate was the material of the moment. The building journals carried recommendations for its use not merely on the roofs of the ever-growing cities but for fireplaces, table tops, 'fittings-up of offices or living rooms, coffee-houses, and public houses', `panels of doors and window shutters, shelves of every sort . fire proofing'.1 New workers' housing had to be built at Moel y Ci, and improvements were needed at Port Penrhyn. In 1820 Dawkins-Pennant set up a new cast-iron bridge over the Cegin so that the tramway could pass right on to the wharf, which he extended in 1827-30.The Jamaican estates were less prosperous during the first half of the century. The dismissal of an attorney for corruption in Lady Penrhyn's time was followed by a series of stormy seasons and low yields, and in 1833 all British slaves were emancipated. But Dawkins-Pennant's main preoccupation for most of his life at Penrhyn was the construction of his new castle, and so he entrusted the aggrandisement of the estate to his son-in-law and successor.
Soon after succeeding, in 1841 Col. DouglasPennant had James Wyatt issue an address, printed in English and Welsh, to all his tenants, which is remarkable in revealing how much of the land was still in cultivation as opposed to pasture. Wyatt wrote that the tenantry were on a ruinous course of exhaustive cropping, shallow ploughing, and poor husbandry of hay and pasture, and as a consequence they were able to raise less stock, which in turn yielded less manure. Large-scale improvements by the landlord were also needed. `Col. Pennant's wich is to see his Property improved', he concluded, 'and, under a better system of husbandry, a thriving and improving class of Farmers. It is impossible, in the present advancing state of society, that he can willingly suffer his Farms to continue in their present neglected and ill-arranged condition.
Old farmhouses and buildings were rapidly replaced with new ones to the agent's own designs, and in 1847 Col. Douglas-Pennant began the enlargement of the estate by accepting the mortgage of Lord Mostyn's lands in the parishes of Ysbyty Ifan and Penmachno near Betws-y-Coed. In 1854 the mortgages were transferred, and in the following year the adjacent land of the former Vaughan estate of Pant Glas was also acquired from Lord Mostyn. This was sporting as well as agricultural land, including the vast moorland expanse known as the Migneint near the source of the Conwy, and it was for sporting purposes that Col. Douglas-Pennant bought the nearby villa of Glan Conway, and Dinas, the house formerly used by Thomas Telford as a base for the building of the long inclined stretch of the Holyhead road south of Betws-y-Coed. During shooting, young ladies and married couples would stay at Glan Conway, and the young men at Dinas, from where a pony and trap would bring them to Glan Conway after breakfast. The villages of Ysbyty Ifan and Penmachno preserve many examples of the `vernacular revival' buildings put up by the estate in the 185os, and both parish churches were rebuilt around 186o, somewhat regrettably in the case of Penmachno.
By the early 187os the estate stood at 41,348 acres in Caernarfonshire, 5,377 at Wicken in Northhamptonshire, 121 in Kent and 77 in Buckinghamshire, yielding £71,000 per annum. Of this rent roll, the £63,000 that came from Caernarfonshire farms was not as handsome as it seemed. 'There is not much encouragement to purchase land in Caernarvonshire whatever the nominal rent may be', wrote the ist Lord Penrhyn to a solicitor friend in 1872. 'I find that as soon as it comes into my possession the calls on me for immediate repairs, new buildings, drainage, enclosure, churches, schools, Parsonage houses, and stipends for incompetent incumbents equal if they do not exceed the total nominal rent and the purchase money is a dead loss from a pecuniary point of view ...'
The mainstay of the ist Lord Penrhyn's income was the quarry, which in 1859 produced 120,000 tons giving a net annual income of £100,000, and the port was again extended and deepened in 1855• With 2,500 men employed, it was no longer practicable to manage the quarry as part of the estate, and when James Wyatt retired in 1860 the posts of estate agent and quarry manager became separate.
Lord Penrhyn was well thought of as a proprietor and employer. In 1912 his daughter Adela recalled his readiness to hear the grievances of quarrymen `face to face', and to visit their homes, a practice that would be reciprocated if ever any of his employees visited London, where they were invited to call at the family's London residence. Taken to the top of St Paul's by one of the family's London stall, one quarryman reported disapprovingly to his employer that there seemed to be far too many brick tiles on the surrounding roofs.
Lord Penrhyn was dismayed when, in 1865, the quarrymen began to form themselves into a union. Concerned that his traditional paternalistic approach was being threatened by the emergence of an intermediary body, he quickly saw to its disbandment. However, in the next ten years the movement towards organisation grew, and in 1874, the year in which steam locomotives were first introduced on a new railway to the port, the North Wales Quarrymen's Union was officially formed, with the immediate support of more than half the employees in the region. After a brief strike its role was recognised at the Penrhyn quarry by the Pennant Lloyd Agreement, named after Lord Penrhyn's agent. Both Lord Penrhyn and his heir George Sholto were recovering from illness at the time. Later, Adela Douglas-Pennant wrote that had they been fully involved a firmer line would have been taken, but `sooner or later the wave of trades unionism surging over the Land must have swept into the quarry'.
The firm line was adopted by George Sholto when he took over the quarry business in 1885, a year before succeeding as znd Baron. Profits had declined since 1874, which he attributed entirely to the influence of the union and their committee. He revoked the Pennant Lloyd Agrement with the words 'I decline altogether to sanction the interference of anybody (corporate or individual) between employer and employed in the working of the Quarry'.
The next decade was characterised by increasing antagonism between the Quarrymen's Committee and the management. In 1894 the Prince and Princess of Wales came to visit the National Eisteddfod at Caernarfon. They toured the quarry under the gaze of 10,000 spectators, 3,000 of them quarrymen. Lord Penrhyn addressed the Eisteddfod as its president, and urged the participants, through their artistic endeavours, to `soar far above the grovelling jealousies of ordinary life . let the effect of its music be to promote the study of harmony between man and man ...'
Within two years came the first major strike, in 1896-7. The Penrhyn quarry had become a focus of attention from all quarters. There was an angry debate in the House of Commons, and Lloyd George made a speech at Carmarthen, denouncing Lord Penrhyn. But this dispute, settled without major concessions on the employer's part, was but the prelude to what has become a legendary episode in industrial history, the strike of 1900-3.
Growing resentment against individual contractors employed in the quarry flared up one afternoon in October 1900 when a serious riot took place on one of the galleries. Twenty-six men were prosecuted, and David Lloyd George acted in their defence in court. Six were convicted and dismissed, but on 22 November, the day the remaining twenty returned to the quarry, the entire workforce walked out, and after negotiations with Lord Penrhyn's manager, E. A. Young, broke down, went on strike. As the strike developed, the key question became the recognition of the union as an intermediary body between the managers and employees. When the quarry reopened in June 1901, 400 men returned to work, but antagonism grew between them and the majority who remained out. Their strike pay was modest, and although large contributions came in from the national press and the TUC, many were forced to seek work in the South Wales coal-mines. When their leader, W. J. Parry, was successfully sued for libel against Lord Penrhyn, his costs were met from a public appeal, and three local choirs toured Britain to raise money for the strikers. At holiday times, when those who had left returned to their families, there was often violence which necessitated the drafting of extra police and troops.
When the press and the TUC ended their support in 1903, the strike began to collapse, and in November there was a vote in favour of a return to work. The strike ended at a time of general depression in the slate industry, and years of hardship and bitterness followed for those who did not find a place in the reduced workforce.
On the estate at large, there had been acquisitions and heavy expenditure in improvements and new buildings (a total of £175,000 between 1867 and 1892), but rents had not risen for many years, and in 1893 the rental income from 72,000 acres had declined to £2r,000. But it was a golden age in one field at least. Angus Duncan Webster, the Head Forester (see Chapter Seven), kept the practice of forestry on the estate at the forefront of the profession. He introduced new commercial species, but also paid great attention to the traditional and still economically important woodland industries of charcoal, bark and coppice production.
Among Webster's duties was the planting of box, privet, yew and holly for game cover, and on the southern part of the estate Lord Penrhyn's sporting interests were entrusted to Andrew Foster, Head Keeper for 28 years, and his eight staff. Five hundred brace of grouse and 3,000 pheasants were reared annually, and Foster kept up a frequent correspondence with Lord Penrhyn, which reveals an interest in natural history shared by both men. Foster's published observations, however, resulted mainly from 'vermin' shot by the keepers — 464 ravens, 16 peregrines, 1,988 kestrels, and 738 sparrow hawks between 1874 and 1902.4
between 1874 and 1902.
The end of the Great Strike in 1903 coincided with a Slump in the building industry, and by the time the First World War broke out production at the quarry was half that achieved in 1898. When building surged after 1918, foreign competitors and home-produced tiles inflicted further damage. Edward Sholto, 3rd Lord Penrhyn, presided, from his main seat at Wicken, over a period of retrenchment and sales, and his son Hugh Napier, 4th Baron, disposed of Richard Pennant's Royal Hotel at Capel Curig, and all the Jamaican property by 1940.
After his death in 1949, the greater part of the estate with Penrhyn Castle passed via the Inland Revenue to the National Trust, and is still managed as over 40,000 acres of mountain and upland pasture, supporting over 6o farms.
The majority interest in the quarry was acquired by Sir Alfred McAlpine Ltd in 1964. The quarry employs nearly 400 men and women, and has an annual output of nearly 500,000 tons, including some 30,000 tons of roofing slate, about one-sixth of world production.

NOTES

1 The Architectural Magazine, March 1834, pp.41-2.

2 To the Farming Tenantry of the Penrhyn Estate, 25 September 1843.

3 Penrhyn MSS, UCNW.
4 See H. E. Forrest, The Fauna of North Wales, 1007.

Penrhyn Servants' Quarters

Entertaining on the Grand Scale

Penrhyn Castle is one of Britain's most remarkable historic houses. Any visitor approaching the north-western tip of Wales, whether by road, rail or sea, is immediately intrigued by its romantic silhouette. With soaring towers and turrets seen against the wide sweep of the North Wales coast or the mountains of Snowdonia, it is truly incomparable. But what is it? — an authentic medieval site? or something much more recent? In fact, it is both, for beneath the apparent uniformity of its Norman Revival exterior, it conceals at least 600 years of continuous occupation and change.
Externally, Penrhyn Castle is essentially the creation of the architect Thomas Hopper, who extended it between about 182o and 184o for George Hay DawkinsPennant. As one approaches from the south by way of the Grand Lodge and the car-park, it reveals itself to be a series of linked units. First comes the Keep, a late 182os tower-block of apartments. This was the family's private accommodation, with bedroom and sitting-room suites on each floor, and nurseries for the children on the third floor. Next, fronted by the boldly terraced carriage entrance, are the state rooms, built around Gwilym ap Gruffydd II's original fortified manor house of 1410-35. Massive in scale, impressive in design and furnishing, their Grand Hall, Dining Room, Drawing Room and Library provided an ideal setting for the most lavish entertainments. The next section, appropriately set back from the rest, was the Servants' Quarters, the first protruding tower accommodating the Housekeeper and all the maids, while the second, a safe distance away, was for the footmen. Finally, behind the Jong, blank wall, came the stables, with room for at least six carriages and 36 horses.
By the mid-19th century the Pennant family was at the height of its power and influence, running the world's greatest slate quarry, developing major country estates, representing Caernarfonshire in Parliament, and entertaining royalty at Penrhyn. The head of die family was created Baron Penrhyn of Llandegai in 1866, and from that time the castle functioned as the seat of an extremely wealthy noble household, with some 3o indoor servants and numerous others tending its gardens, Home Farm and estate. After the family gave the castle to the National Trust in 1951, the Servants' Quarters remained largely unused.
But following extensive restoration in 1996-2000, you can now see them just as they appeared for their greatest occasion, the Royal Visit of 1894.

The Royal Visit

Penrhyn Castle has enjoyed a number of royal visits. Princess Victoria came here in 1832, returning again as Queen with Prince Albert in 1859. The Queen of Romania also stayed here in 1890. Most memorable of all, however, was the visit of the Prince and Princess of Wales (the future King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra) with their daughters, Princess Victoria and Princess Maud. This took place on 10-13 July 1894, on the occasion of the National Eisteddfod at Caernarfon, of which the 2nd Lord Penrhyn was President. From start to finish, the whole event was packed with ceremonial, entertainment and vast banquets, which reflect the enormous energy, stamina and joie de vivre of late Victorian high society.
At the castle, literally tons of food and drink had been assembled beforehand, and 26 bedrooms were made ready for the house party, which included the Duke of Westminster, the Earls of Powis and Denbigh, and six lords. In the kitchens and larders, hundreds of dishes of the very highest quality were prepared, ready for the first evening. On 10 July, at 5.3opm, Lord Penrhyn met the royal party at Bangor station, conducted it to a Civic Welcome at the Town Clock, and then on to the castle, where a guard of honour from the Royal Welch Fusiliers and a royal salute awaited its arrival.
There was just time to change and dress before a nine-course dinner was served in the Dining Room at 8pm. With the tables covered in fine heraldic linen damask from the Linen Room, the magnificent silver centrepieces, wine cisterns and cutlery from the Butler's Pantry, the great Minton dessert service from the China Room, and displays of hot-house flowers and dessert fruit from the gardens, everything was presented to perfection. Dinner was followed at 1o.3opm by a grand evening party for over 200 guests, many wearing their colourful dress uniforms, orders and decorations. The entertainment included a concert by the famous Penrhyn Male Voice Choir, and, about midnight, a magnificent supper featuring truffled quail, lobster, foie gras and many other delicacies.

Even though junketing continued into the small hours, the royal party had breakfasted by 10.45 next morning, and were off in their carriages for the ten-mile drive to the Eisteddfod. Cheering crowds welcomed them into the pavilion at Caernarfon for a loyal address, choirs, harps, recitals of Welsh poetry such as englynion and penillion, and the Chairing of the Bard. The Archdruid initiated the Prince and Princesses, together with Lord and Lady Penrhyn, as Honorary Ovates at a Gorsedd held in the Castle Square. Then came a tour of Caernarfon Castle, a grand luncheon and a cruise up the Menai Strait to the Bangor pier-head, where carriages were waiting for the final stage of the return journey. Following a seven-course dinner and recitals from the Bangor Cathedral Choir and a band of harps, a grand firework display concluded this busy day.
12 July was chosen for a visit to Lord Penrhyn's great quarry, which at that time employed 2,950 men to produce 110,000 tons of finished slates each year. For maximum effect, 1,500 explosive charges were now fired off in volleys to bring

thousands of tons of slate crashing down in a deafening roar. As silence returned, 10,000 quarrymen and their families stood around the brink of this vast amphitheatre, and, led by the Bethesda Choir, sang `Land of my Fathers' and `God Save the Queen' to the great appreciation of the Prince and his party. The Penrhyn Choral Union sang as luncheon was served at Lord Penrhyn's lodge at Ogwen Bank.
All the food — a soup, two fish and twelve main dishes, eight sweets and ices, and two savouries — had been sent over from the castle kitchens that morning.
Later in the afternoon the royal party inspected Port Penrhyn and, although the sea was quite rough, then boarded the steam-yacht Mira for a cruise off the coast of Anglesey. Here the Snowdon, carrying 400 people from Llandudno with the town band, came alongside to render `God Bless the Prince of Wales', which Princess Alexandra acknowledged by a wave of her sunshade. After this bracing experience, the party returned once more to the castle for an eight-course dinner, and a more relaxed evening. As a grand finale, James Pain & Sons of London provided a magnificent firework display at Port Penrhyn, its centrepiece being 'a realistic representation of the Falls of Niagara, 15o ft long'. On Friday, 13 July, the royal party left Penrhyn at 12.15pm to board the train which was to carry them to a series of functions in Rhyl, and then back to London.
The remarkable success of the whole visit was due, in large measure, to the efficiency of the house staff at the castle. During the course of three days, they had served over 1,15o individual meals. Half of them were relatively plain fare for the servants, but the rest featured 89 separate dishes of the greatest gastronomic quality for each of the 35 house-guests. This could have been achieved only in a household such as this, where a vast investment in service buildings, staff and equipment had been made over the preceding years.

Planning

When designing a house, it has always been essential to ensure that all the rooms concerned with food and drink, lighting, laundry and service are all arranged for maximum efficiency. In uth-century Penrhyn, the services were set out around a defensible courtyard, with the kitchen and brew-house in a separate block an the site of the present Brushing Room and Brewhouse. In this way, noise, smells and firerisk were kept away, upwind from the great hall and parlour (now the Drawing Room and North Library), where Gwilym took his meals.
In the Tate 1780s Richard Pennant employed the architect Samuel Wyatt to transform the castle into a fashionable gentleman's residence. To do this, he extended Gwilym's house to the east, giving it a square plan, with drawing and dining rooms along the south front. He also swept away the old courtyard, and replaced it with a huge 33o by 9oft service wing to die north, incorporating both a laundry yard and the present stables.
Richard Pennant's cousin, George Hay Dawkins-Pennant, inherited the castle in 1816. Although Wyatt's work was barely 3o years old, Dawkins-Pennant considered it far too small and old-fashioned to reflect his elevated status, and so he invited Thomas Hopper to remodel it on a much grander scale. In the service rooms, Hopper retained the core of Wyatt's general layout, but recased it in Penmon limestone, incorporating new courtyards, walls and towers. Everything was logically arranged, with Ice Tower, Meat Rooms, Brew-house and Bake-house in the outer court; kitchen, scullery, Servants' Hall, Butler's Pantry and Steward's Room in the Wyatt block; Housekeeper's Room, Still Room, China Room and Stores in the Housekeeper's Tower; and the laundry still in Wyatt's laundry yard.
Thirty years later, in 1866, George Dawkins-Pennant's son-in-law, Edward Gordon Douglas-Pennant, was created
ist Baron Penrhyn of Llandegai. As a peer, he was expected to provide even higher standards of hospitality, and therefore immediately began to rebuild the kitchens. By transferring the Laundry to a new site out on the estate, he was able to construct a massive new suite of Kitchen, Scullery, Pastry Room and Larders in the old laundry yard, and convert the old kitchen and scullery into Housekeeper's Room, Still Room and Stores. So, in 1868 the servants' quarters achieved their final form, having been rebuilt three times in just over 8o years.

1 Entrance Gallery
2 Grand Hall
3 Library
4 Drawing Room
5 Ebony Room
6 Grand Staircase
7 Back Stairs
8 Steward's Office
9 Breakfast Room
10 Dining Room
11 State Bedroom
12 Oak Tower bedrooms
13 Keep bedrooms
14 Butler's Pantry
15 Servants' Hall
16 H ousekeeper's Room (now tea-room)
17 Brushing Room
18 Lamp Room
19 China Roomzo
20 Cook's Sitting Room
21 Kitchen
22 Pastry Room
23 Scullery
24 Maids' bedrooms
25 Footmen's Tower
26 Larders
27 Laundry
28 Bakehouse
29 Brewhouse
3o Gun Room
31 Soup Kitchen
32 Ice Tower
33 Back Gate
34 Stables

The Servants' Hall

The main purpose of this room was to provide a communal dining room for the servants, and an area where they could wait, until summoned by bells in the corridor outside. Tradesmen could also wait here to see the Steward, the Butler or the Housekeeper. When the Kitchen was busy, the ranges, ovens and hotplate could be brought into use. When the castle was closed up between family visits, the Servants' Hall served as a storeroom for all the carpets removed from the state rooms and bedrooms. Originally, it was furnished with '2 Long Deal tables', '8 Deal Benches' (which are still here), a 'Wall Glock', a `Galvanised Coal Box', and an 'hon Fender'.

A Day in the Servants' Hall in the 193os

6.3oam The junior staff get up. The hall boy hoists the standard an the Keep, if the family are in residence, and carries kindling, coal and logs to all the fireplaces in the castle which were to be in use that day, including the Servants' Hall. Meanwhile, the scullery-maid lights the fires in the Kitchen and the Cook's Sitting Room, and sweeps and dusts the Cook's Sitting Room.

7.00am The scullery-maid makes tea, and takes it to the Cook's Bedroom, for his morning call. She also makes the toast for the servants' breakfasts. The kitchen-maid cooks the servants' breakfasts of porridge, either bacon, tomato and fried bread, bacon and sausage, or kedgeree or fishcakes; and buttered toast and marmalade.

7.30am By now the hall boy has laid the tables in the Servants' Hall, where the under-staff assemble to have breakfast. The male staff probably sat at one table, supervised by the Butler or First Footman, and the female staff at the other, supervised by the Housekeeper.

8.00am After breakfast, the kitchen-maid starts to prepare the servants' lunch, which might be either roast leg of lamb, steakand kidney pie or pudding, Irish stew, roast beef or pork, liver and onions, or beef casserole and dumplings. This was followed by a hot sweet in winter, or a cold one in summer, including stewed
fruit and custard, summer pudding or milk puddings. She would also make the cakes for the servants' teas.

12.00pm Servants' lunch. The upper servants, including the Steward, the Butler, the Housekeeper, the valet, the ladies' maids and the governesses, take their lunch in the Housekeeper's Room (now the tea-room).

4.30pm Servants' tea of tea and cakes.

7.00pm Servants' supper. Usually of cold meats with pickles or fried-up vegetables and potatoes left over from lunch.

The Lamp Room

Although Penrhyn Castle was lit by gas in the 189os, candles and oil lamps still remained in use, especially for illuminating tables and desks, or for lighting one's way around the house after dark. All supplies of candles and lamp fittings were kept by the Housekeeper in her storeroom. In 1927 it contained `About 6o gas Mantles, 5 doz. lamp Chimneys, Quantity Lamp Wicks, About 281b Wax Candles, 2 Packets tallow Candles, About 841bs Candles, 3 Boxes Taper Candles, 2 Boxes Night Lights'. In addition, she kept spare lamp chimneys, shades and fittings in the Lamp Stock Room, next to the China Room.
Maintaining all the candlesticks and lamps formed part of the footmen's duties. Every morning all the lights which had been lit the previous night were carried down to the Lamp Room, where they were cleaned, polished, refilled and made ready for use. Here the candelabra and candlesticks had the burnt candle-ends removed and any splashes of wax carefully taken off with the aid of boiling water, a wooden knife, or a piece of wash-leather wound around a stick. For family use, new beeswax candles were then inserted, while for the servants there were either the burnt ends of wax candles, or the cheaper tallow candles, made from mutton fat. The candles were then lit to burn off the cotton wick, and extinguished, so they would immediately light without any trouble whenever they were needed. Now they were ready for carrying back to their respective rooms in the evening, or to be put out by the Drawing Room door so that the family and their guests could light their way to bed.
The oil lamps were also brought down to be cleaned, refilled, have their wicks trimmed or renewed, and their glass chimneys and shades wiped clean with a wash-leather. Being extremely flammable, the oils, either thick Colza oil made from cole seed, or paraffin, were kept in large cans in the Oil Vault next to the Lamp Room. From here they were poured into spouted cans and then, with the aid of a funnel, into each lamp in turn. Spillage had to be avoided, since the oils would easily dissolve the clear lacquer which kept their metalwork clean and bright.
For parties and balls, bright and colourful illuminations were provided by Vauxhall lights (named after the Vauxhall pleasure gardens in London, where they were widely used). These were small coloured glass jars, each housing a nightlight (a short, thick candle) and with a wire suspension loop, so that it could be hung from a wire, just like modern light bulbs.
Sometimes there were mishaps, as Adela Douglas-Pennant recalled of Queen Victoria's visit in 1859:
A man was specially had down from Miller's the great lamp shop in London, to see after the lighting of the house during the Royal visit, instead of trusting to the services of the ordinary `lamp man' of the House. This man desertedhis duties, to see the arrival of the Royal guest and omitted to light the corkscrew staircase up to the keep, so that when my mother took the Queen to her room, she found the stairs incomplete darkness. My Mother begged the Queen to wait while she ran upstairs for a light, but on returning to the head of the steps, she found the Queen had laughingly groped her way up behind her in the dark.

The Brushing Room

Before modern methods of dry-cleaning were introduced, all woollen clothes such as suits, coats, cloaks and uniforms had to be kept clean by means of regular brushing. This was one of the footman's morning duties, and was carried out in the Brushing Room. Here in 1927 there were a `Long Deal Brushing Table, Deal Ironing Table, 4 Clothes Airers, Fender and Coal Box', together with a fireplace for drying clothes, boiling water and heating flatirons, a sink for water, and large cupboards for storage.
Any wet or damp clothes had to be carefully dried before brushing. They were then hung over a line and Beaten with a small stick or cane to loosen the dirt. Only then were they brushed in the direction of the nap (or pile), using a hard brush for overcoats or to remove mud, or a soft one for the lighter and cleaner fabrics. The Brushing Room was also used for brushing and cleaning hats, boots and shoes.

The China Room

All the china tableware used by the family was stored in the China Room, under the supervision of die Housekeeper. The present China Room is the original one set up in the basement of the Housekeeper's Tower in the 184os, and has a series of fitted cupboards, shelves and a long deal table for storing hundreds of pieces of fine china. Just one of the Minton dinner services stored here comprised 114 Dinner Plates, 22 Soup Plates, 23 Pudding Plates, 6 Vegetable Dishes, 3 Soup Tureens and 3 Sauce Tureens. There is also a magnificent Minton dessert service, with large cake, fruit and preserve stands, and bonbondishes, all with beautiful moulded white porcelain cherubs holding up dishes decorated in broad bands of turquoise enamel and gilding.

To keep all this delicate china clean and safe, a specialist china-woman was employed. Her duties also included baking all the castle's bread in the bakehouse in the back court. She was responsible for preparing all the china required for the family's meals, and for washing it up and putting it away after it had been used. To do this, she had two large lead-lined sinks, which kept the water hot, but would not break any china accidentally knocked against them. One was filled with hot soapy water, to remove all stains and traces of food, while the other was filled with hot water alone, so that each piece could be rinsed off before being immediately dried with a soft tea-towel to leave it perfectly clean, smear-free and polished before being returned to its cupboard.

The Cook's Sitting Room

As in all major Victorian households, the head of the kitchens was a male chef, called the cook, who was assisted by three kitchen-maids and a number of scullerymaids. In the late 19th century he was always French. The cook received a very high salary, some £15o a year, a great contrast to the £12 to £24 a year paid to the maids.
This room served as the cook's combined office, store and rest-room. Here he would keep his accounts at his desk, and also prepare his menus and recipes, perhaps using Theodore Garrett's Encyclopaedia of Practical Cookery(1892-4), then the finest cookery book in the English language. Here are his wash-stand and towels, ready for freshening up during his long hours of day and evening work, his white tunic and hat, the soiled linen basket for their reception after use, and the table where he took his meals and snacks between the busy periods preparing all the household's luncheons, dinners and suppers.
Most of his bulk supplies of ingredients would be stored in the cupboards lining the Pastry Pantry, but his working stock of herbs, spices, vinegars and liqueurs would be kept safely under lock and key inhis store cupboard here. The mantelpiece features a number of pieces of local quarrymen's craftsmanship, including a pair of slate photo frames, a miniature dresser and a bible.

The Pastry Pantry

This room was used to store most of the cook's ingredients and small equipment, as well as the finished dishes ready for carrying through to the Dining Room. Here one of the magnificent Penrhyn dessert services, made by Minton's of Stoke-on-Trent from the 1850s onwards, holds many of the fruit, cakes and sweets which were to be served at the dinners and ball suppers held during the Royal Visit.
The pestle and mortar here were probably used originally in the Still Room,, while the jelly stand is a modern replacement for the original Penrhyn example. Note the bread slicer in the vestibule. This too was probably used in the Still Room to slice bread for the family and servants' tables and for toast for the morning trays.


The Pastry Room

This room is ideal for pastry-making, the long slate benches lining two of its walls being perfectly cool and smooth. The flour was stored in the large, lidded bin (a modern replacement of the original), and then made into all manner of pies, pasties, flans and biscuits, using the numerous utensils kept in the large glazed cupboards. The large mixing bowls (marked 'K' for kitchen), the large copper egg-beating bowl and the marmalade cutter with the iron wheel handle are all original to Penrhyn, and the small square slate pastry board and slate rolling pin were made by a quarryman who worked in Lord Penrhyn's great Bethesda quarry.

The Kitchen

This was the main cooking area in the castle, most of the facilities being arranged along the south wall (left of the windows). The first arch originally housed a boiling copper, complete with its own fireplace, but this was replaced by a coal-bunker, filled through a hatch in the back wall.
Next come the pastry ovens, which are lined with a thick layer of fireclay tiles to hold the heat provided by the coalburning furnace below.
In the centre stands the great roasting range, used for cooking all manner of meats and poultry by fierce radiant heat. The `sliding cheeks', the moveable sides of the fireplace, were wound in or out the required amount by means of rack-andpinion mechanisms mounted within each hob. The coal fire produced a rush of hot air that rotated a large fan in the chimney flue. By means of pulleys and chains, this movement was used to turn the meat fixed an the horizontal spits in front of the fire.
In front of the fire stands a large roasting screen, which helped to speed up the roasting, provide an efficient hotcupboard, and protect the kitchen stall from the heat. Its interior is lined with highly polished tinplate to reflect the heat. The large dripping pan beneath the spits collected all the juices and basting liquids which fell from the meatsuntil they were 'done to a turn'. The cooked foods were also kept warm in the adjacent hotcupboard, ready for dishing-up and sending to the Dining Room.
Beneath the three large windows is a replacement for the original 1870 gas-stove. On it are a selection of copper cooking pots and a huge kettle, many of them original Penrhyn pieces. At the right end are three gas grills, each with an efficient gridiron incorporating sloping, guttershaped bars to drain the fats and juices into the troughs between the handles.
The smaller ash-topped kitchen table was probably made for this room, around 1868. The larger one is a modern replacement built to the original design and using the identical materials. The large dresser and the cupboards lining the walls were designed by the great Victorian countryhouse architect Anthony Salvin for the 1865 restoration of the Duke of Northumberland's magnificent Alnwick Castle.

The Scullery

Built on the site of the original laundry, the Scullery was used for preparing foods for the Kitchen, plucking the game and poultry, boiling various dishes, and for washing and cleaning all the utensils. Proceeding clockwise around the Scullery from the left, we first see the lead-lined sinks and the draining-boards, complete with bars of kitchen soap in their soap-box. The cords mounted on the west wall controlled the four small windows high above. Together with the ventilator in the Kitchen, these helped to disperse all the steam rising from the sinks and boiler below.
The stairs in the corner (no public access) led up to the kitchen and scullerymaids' bedrooms. Beneath them are the bunkers for firewood and coal, ready to feed the two large boilers. The first, installed early in the 2oth century to replace an earlier boiling copper, operates two separate heating systems, one for hot water, and the other for radiators in the cook's and housemaids' rooms. The boiler in the corner was designed for boiling large joints of meat, vegetables contained in net bags, or numerous suet puddings, as well as producing quantities of hot water for washing and cleaning. It is heated by a furnace which directs the flames across the bottom and up the back and sides of the copper boiler. The cold water supply comes up the lead pipe by the adjacent grey wooden box, which houses a ballcock cistern. From here it flows along a pipe into the bottom of the boiler, to ensure that it is always full to within a few inches of the brim. Another pipe prevents any dangerous overflow of boiling water, while the large brass tap enables the boiler to be emptied, or buckets to be filled with hot water. As a further refinement, the boiler has a close-fitting sectional lid, with a separate duct above to draw away all the steam, and keep the Scullery as comfortable as possible.
The eastern wall is lined with storage shelves and work benches with lockers underneath for vegetables. Above is a large bacon loft with a slatted floor and front wall, in which hams and rolls of bacon were hung.

The Vegetable Scullery

Here the fruit and vegetables were delivered fresh every morning from the walled gardens, and prepared for the Kitchen. This room was originally an open courtyard, but was later provided with a sloping glass roof and a number of slate sinks. As in all major Victorian households, there was far more to preparing vegetables than simply washing, peeling and chopping. Each piece, for example, had to be cut exactly the same size and shape by.`turning' it by hand with a sharp knife, or alternatively shaping it into perfect cylinders with tinplate cutters, or scooping it into ball, egg or fluted shapes using steel tools.

The Wet Larder

Situated to the north of the larder block, where it is completely shaded from the sun, this larder would have been used for storing uncooked meats. To keep perishable foods cold in summer, it was equipped with the large ice-box refrigerator. Its central lid conceals a large compartment which was filled with ice. Also seen here is a slate meat-safe, which is a fine example of local craftsmanship.

The Dry Larder

The hygienic importance of storing uncooked foods separately from cooked ones had already been recognised by the medieval period, and here at Penrhyn there are separate Wet (raw food) and Dry (cooked food) Larders.
Ideally, all larders should face north, to avoid the heat of the sun, but here there was no option but to have some of them facing south. To keep these rooms as cool as possible, the architect added a deep canopy over the southern windows, and pierced a series of ducts through the walls at ground level for ventilation.

The Dairy Larder

From the 186os the Home Farm produced milk, cream, butter and eggs, which were brought across the park every morning to the Dairy Larder. At the back of the wooden work bench, beneath the outer window, are the original Penrhyn milk jugs with cans similar to those used to bring cream from the farm.
The Dairy Larder is shown as if being used for making ice-cream. A bucket of ice from the ice-house stands in the slate sink, some already having been packed with coarse salt into the adjacent grained tinplate ice-box or `ice-cave to form an efficient short-term deep-freezer. The icecream mixture — basically a flavoured eggcustard sauce — was prepared in the Kitchen by the cook and brought in here in the copper saucepan. To convert it into ice-cream, it was poured into the tall pewter freezing-pot or sorbetiire, which was then embedded in a wooden tub fall of an ice and salt freezing mixture. In order to ensure a smooth consistency, the mixture was regularly churned with a metal-bladed ice paddle, which lies alongside. When the ice-cream had frozen to a semi-solid state, it was packed into one of the tinned-copper bombe moulds, and placed in the ice cave until it had hardened completely. A finished brown bread iced souflU and two strawberry bombes identical to those served to the royal party are shown here.
Butter was also moulded here. The slate butter table to the right came from the Home Farm dairy. On it are shown Lady Penrhyn's creamware butter pot, and blocks of butter wrapped in their greaseproof papers. For presentation on the dining-table, the butter was beaten into pats using the ridged wooden `scotch hands', and then pressed into wooden moulds, to produce butter sheep and other shapes. In the late r9th century, monogrammed butter pats were popular in many great houses: the interlaced 'PP' (Lord Penrhyn of Penrhyn Castle) beneath a coronet seen on the round pats also appears on the family's menu cards and damask table linen. Each pat, garnished with parsley, stands in a miniature Royal Doulton butter-tub, and is set in ice ready for serving.
On the slate table in front stand three more pieces of dairy creamware — a twohandled cup, a cream cheese mould with its lid, and a sieve to strain the milk. All bear the coroneted monogram `AP' for Anne Pennant, wife of Richard Pennant, ist Lord Penrhyn. They were made at the Herculaneum Pottery in Liverpool about 1790 for use in her personal dairy, idyllically sited on the banks of the River Ogwen.

The Ice Tower

The Ice Tower is the 7o-foot-high round tower by the back gate, which takes its name from the ice-house dug deep within its foundations. Until mechanical freezers were invented, all major country houses relied an natural ice to enable their cooks to make a whole series of delicious icecreams, sorbets and iced drinks during the summer months.
To do this, estate workers and gardeners set off in the coldest mid-winter weather to gather ice from Llyn Ogwen, a lake high in the mountains of Snowdonia, and from the pond in the park. Having carted it up to the Ice Tower, they carried it in through the outer door at ground level, and rammed it down into the deep, wood-lined pit inside, so that it formed one enormous block of ice. Once the pit was full, the double doors were closed, insulating the ice so that it would last for most of the coming year, any meltwater draining off through the fron grating at the bottom.
Whenever the cook was required to make ice-cream, a basket full of ice would be drawn up into the first floor of the Ice Tower using a rope-and-pulley system, and then carried across the back court into one of the cool larders. After being broken up with an ice-pick, it was then placed in a tub and mixed with half its weight of salt, thus forming a much colder freezing mixture, which quickly froze the contents of any pewter freezing pots embedded within it. Alternatively, the ice could be packed around the wine bottles in the massive silver ice-pails in the Dining Room, or into the castle's refrigerator, which still stands in the Wet Larder, where it was first recorded in 1868. Being natural pond and lake water, the ice itself was unfit for human consumption.

Miles on this day: 77

22°C - bewölkt