We were going to Chirk Castle (£8.80/Person) and after our Picnic in the garden of Chirk Castle to Erddig House (£9.40/Person)

Chirk Castle

A castle and a home for 700 years


On side of hill it standes most trim to vewe,
An old strong place, a castle nothing newe.
A goodly thing, a princely pallace yet,
If all within were thoroughly furnished fit.

Thomas Churchyard on Chirk in 1587

Chirk Castlewas built between 1295 and 1310 by one of Edward I's warlords, Roger Mortimer. The rugged exterior has changed little since then, apart from the replacement of arrow slits by mullioned windows. Chirk still retains the grim aspect of a border fortress designed to subdue the Welsh. The interior, however, is much more welcoming. It displays many different styles, reflecting the fact that the castle has been continuously occupied for 700 years.

Medieval Chirk

Among Chirk's often immensely powerful possessors in the Middle Ages were theEarls of Arundel, Cardinal Beaufortand Sir William Stanley. At least five of its medieval owners were executed for treason, their estates being seized by the Crown. In the Wars of the Roses, Chirk was tossed about between the rival houses of York and Lancaster; after 1495 it was firmly in the hands of the Tudors. For the tenants who lived on the Chirk estate it meant years of turmoil and high taxes.

The Myddeltons of Chirk

In 1595 the estate was sold to a prominent merchant adventurer, Thomas Myddelton, whose descendants have lived here ever since.During the Civil War, the castle was captured in 1643 and again in 1659, when it was partly demolished by order of Parliament. This was in the time of the second Sir Thomas Myddelton, a famous Parliamentary general who later declared for Charles IIand whose son was rewarded with a baronetcy. In the 1670s the 2nd Baronet repaired the castle, built the Long Gallery and brought many treasures to Chirk.
The 18th century saw the creation of the classical interiors of the State Rooms and Grand Staircase, and the informal landscaping of the park. In the 19th century the architect A.W. Puginremodelled the Cromwell Hall in Gothic Revival style and carried out extensive alterations in the east range.
The castle and 195 hectares (481 acres) of park were bought for the nation through the National Land Fund in 1978 and transferred to the National Trust three years later, a famous Parliamentary general who later declared for Charles II and whose son was rewarded with a baronetcy.

A journey through time

As you walk round the inside of the castle, you take a journey back through seven centuries of history and taste. From the 19th-century Cromwell Hall, you pass to the 18th-century Grand Staircase and State Rooms, before reaching the 17th-century Long Gallery. Your tour ends in the medieval Adam's Tower.

Tour of the Castle

The Exterior

The Approach and Gateway

The castle stands at the top of a grassy slope, from which it takes its Welsh name — Castell y Waun. You approach it today from the north, where a section of the dry moat can still be seen. A wolf (which features on the Myddelton coat of arms) was kept chained here in 1684, when the Duke of Beaufort visited Chirk.
Dominating the exterior are the circular towers, which project out from the corners of the castle to provide a continuous field of fire, and the maximum protection for the connecting walls. The towers would originally have been higher than the curtain walls, but the upper sections were probably damaged during the sieges of 1644 and 1659 and subsequently taken down, to leave the present level silhouette.
The entrance gateway is surprisingly modest. At Beaumaris Castle in Gwynedd (built in 1295) and mang other medieval castles, the gatehouse is much more substantial, because it was the point most vulnerable to attackers and most suitable for ostentatious heraldic display. There may originally have been something similar on the south front, before it possibly collapsed in the 14th century.
The coat of arms of the Myddelton Biddulphscarved over the gateway may have been designed by Pugin in the 1840s.

The Courtyard

When the castle was first built, the only accommodation was in the towers, the connecting curtain walls being purely defensive. The four internal ranges that now surround the courtyard all date from different periods. They illustrate the complex way in which the castle has been adapted over the past seven centuries to make a comfortable family home.

The West Range: c.1300

This is the only range surviving from the original castle and includes the largely unaltered Adam's Tower . Near this tower is the original well, which is 3o metres deep and was a vital element in any castle's defences. Despite it,Sir Thomas Myddelton III, later Ist Baronet, had to surrender in 1659 for lack of water.In contrast to the other three sides, a suite of apartments was never built against this wall of the castle, although rooms were created at the upper-floor level within its five-metre thickness.

The clock-tower was put up on the inner face of Adam's Tower in 1609 although the belfrey was added as part of the Pugin alterations, probably by E.W. Pugin.

The South Range: 1529

This range was built by officials working for Henry VIII, when Chirk was a Crown possession. They reused masonry from demolished parts of the original south range.
At the left (east) end is the weathered Baroque doorway to the Chapel, which dates from 1675.



The North Range: early 17th-century

The first Sir Thomas Myddelton built this range. The inscribed tablet over the door to the tearoom (the old kitchen) mentions that his son, the second Sir Thomas, put up a `new building and the toure' in 1636, but, confusingly, this tablet may have been moved here from another part of the castle.
The steps lead up to a Gothic Revival doorway designed by Pugin, through which you enter the Cromwell Hall and begin your tour of the interior.


The East Range: c.1846

Pugin refaced this range, which accommOdates the family's former private apartments, with the present battlemented Gothic facade. The windows still contain some of his stained glass. Previously, there had been an open colonnade on the ground floor of this range.


`On the eastern side of the spacious court
was a kennel, chained to which was an
enormous dog, partly of the bloodhound,
partly of the mastiff species, who occasionally
uttered a deep magnificent bay.'

George Borrow, 1862

The Interior

Asterisked items have been accepted in lieu of Inheritance Tax by HM Government and allocated to the National Trust.

The Cromwell Hall

This is an early Victorian re-creation of the Great Hall that would have been at the heart of life in medieval Chirk. It is the most complete survivor of the Gothik Revivalinteriors designed by Pugin in the 1840s for Robert Myddelton Biddulph. The room takes its narre from the Cromwellian armour that hangs on the walls.
In the early 17th century the castle servants would have eaten their meals at long tables in this room, washed down with large quantities of weak beer, which was served through a hatch in the Screens Passage from the Butler's Pantry beyond. After the servants had been moved across the courtyard to the present Servants' Hall , it became solely an entrance hall, which was decorated in the classical style by 1778.
Pugin swept all this away and set out to make the room medieval once again with a profusion of heraldry and dark oak panelling and furniture. He decorated the new stone chimneypiece with the coats of arms of Robert Myddelton Biddulph and his wife, Fanny Mostyn Owen, who came from another old Marcher family. The lion and unicorn on the mantelpiece were carved in 1673 for the newel posts of the old main staircase, which was replaced in 1777-8. The brass and wrought-iron firedogs in the hearth date from the same period.
The arms painted on the panelling were copied from a Myddelton family tree drawn up in 1595. Pugin replaced the classical columns with the carved oak screen bearing the Latin mottoes of the Myddeltons (In veritate triumpho: `I triumph in the truth') and the Biddulphs (Sublimiora petamus: us seek higher things'). More heraldry fills the stained-glass windows, supplied by Pugin's favourite firm of craftsmen, John Hardman & Co. of Birmingham.

From the late 19th century until the Second World War, this was used as a billiard room, dominated by a full-size mahogany table.
In 1991 the National Trust restored the 19thcentury decorative scheme for the room.

Furniture

The old oak furniture was arranged and `improved' by Pugin. So, for instance, he added the cresting to the two early 17th-century oak armchairs,* and he also designed a pair of oak benches.
The five-sided buffets* are late 6th- or early 17th-century. They were known as `court cupboards' and would have been used to
store and display cups and plates, like the brass alms dishes now shown here. The leather jugs (or blackjacks) are similar to those the ist Baronet bought in London in 1663. Under the glass dome are riding boots of the 17th century.

Armour

Old halls were traditionally hung with armour, ready for use in time of trouble. These Cromwellian muskets and armour* were put up here in 1680 to celebrate the family's exploits in the Civil War . They were removed to the Servants' Hall in 1768, and, surprisingly, were not returned until after Pugin's time. The drum,* painted with the Myddelton arms, was almost certainly bought in 1679 for use by the Denbighshire militia, a local force which many of the Myddeltons commanded.

Pictures

The view of Chirk* was made from bog-oak inlaid with bone in the late 19th century by William Roberts,the porter at Ruthin Castle(owned by a Myddelton cousin). It is based on Thomas Badeslade's 1735 bird's-eye view engraving of the castle from the north-east, which shows the famous Davies gates in their original position. The Baronet's patent was granted to Sir Thomas Myddelton III, the son of the Civil War general, in 1661 by Charles II for the family's loyalty to the cause. The King's portrait appears on the patent, which was later put into a frame designed by Pugin.

The Grand Staircase

In complete contrast with the Gothic Revival Cromwell Hall, the Grand Staircase is in the Neo-classical style. This unusual semicircular space was constructed in 1777-8 by a local architect, Joseph Turner of Chester, to replace the previous 17th-century wooden stairs. It was a considerable feat of engineering. For Turner had to excavate the broad first-floor landing out of the five-metre thick walls of the central tower on the north front. He also inserted the four Ionic columns to support the massive beams that hold up his new ceiling.
In the 1840s, Pugin redecorated the room and introduced panelling. These alterations were reversed by the Myddeltons in the 1950s.

Pictures

On the stairs hang portraits of the first Sir Thomas Myddelton, who bought the castle in 1595, dressed in his robes as Lord Mayor of
London, and of his brother, Sir Hugh, who founded the New River Company (respectively on loan from theGuildhall Art Galleryand National Portrait Gallery, London).
On the landing is Peter Tillemans's view of the castle from the north, which was painted about 1720, possibly to celebrate the completion of the magnificent wrought-iron gates and screen made by the Davies brothers of Bersham. It is loaned by the National Museums and Galleries of Wales.

Furnishings

The mahogany hall-chairs in the stairwell were probably made for the London house of Richard Myddelton and later painted with the arms of Charlotte Myddelton and Robert Biddulph. Those on the landing were decorated with the arms of Richard Myddelton and his first wife, Elizabeth Rushout. They were made for the Neo-classical entrance hall, which Pugin's Cromwell Hall replaced.

The State Dining Room

This is the first of the Neo-classical state rooms you will see that occupy the principal floor of the north range. It became the main dining room in the 177os, when the room next door was turned into the Saloon.
The plasterwork decoration on the walls and ceiling is in the style of Robert Adam and was the work ofJoseph Turner and his foreman, Mr Vaughan. Pugin, who disliked the Neoclassical style, repainted it to resemble dark oak panelling, with the reliefs picked out in gold.
After an outbreak of dry rot, the Myddeltons repainted the room in 1963. The Boulle-style bracket clock of c.1710 over the fireplace is by Charles Balthazar of Paris.
The chimneypiece is also i8th-century Neo-classical, but was not in fact inserted until the 1930s, by Lord Howard de Walden.

Porcelain

The dinner service on the sideboard and table is mid-19th-century faience earthenware from Strasbourg. In the centre of the mantelpiece is a Meissen group of 1774-1814.

Glass

The gilded glasses are early i 8th-century Bohemian. Some of the plain glass displayed under the window is decorated with the 'hand' emblem of the Myddelton baronetcy. The chandelier, c. i 800, came from the London home of Lady Margaret Myddelton's stepfather, the ist Lord Astor of Hever.

Silver

The Rococo cup and cover is engraved with the arms of Richard Myddelton and his wife Elizabeth, who married in 1761. It was made by John Parker and Edward Wakelin about this date, and so may have been a wedding present.
The circular salvers were also a wedding present, to Captain Ririd and Lady Margaret Myddelton in 1931 from the staff and tenants at Chirk.



Dining at Chirk in the 1930s

According to Hilda Wright, who was ist Kitchenmaid from 1935 to 1941, the Howard de Waldens `entertained on a very large scale, frequently including Royalty amongst their guests. Mrs Hardy [the cook] was in her element when serving her wonderful meals, full of flavour, colour and attraction on the lovely silver dishes'. On 26 June 1937 the supper menu comprised:

Potage Consomme' Impftiale;
Truite a la Parisienne; Poulet Volney aux Pois; Seile d'Agneau, Sauce Menthe;
MacMoine de Leumes; Salade en Saison; Asperges en Branches; Souffle Glace aux Fraises; Barquettes Moderne

The Saloon

In the 17th century this was the castle's main dining room. In 1772 it was transformed into a saloon, a room for displaying the family's best furniture and for entertaining.

Ceiling and doors

Turner created the coffered ceiling by encasing the existing beams with Adam-style plasterwork, made by a Mr Kilmister. The plasterwork frames scenes from Greek mythology painted by George Mullins,an Irish landscapist. The deep blue background and the gilding were added by Pugin and his decorator, J.C. Grace, in the 184os.
Turner also supplied the doorcases, which are equal to the best Neo-classical work being produced in London in the 1760s.

Chimneypiece

The marble chimneypiece was carved by Benjamin Bromfield of Liverpool from red Sicilian jasper marble and installed in 1773.

Wallpaper and curtains

Pugin and Grace supplied flock wallpaper in shades of green, brown and gilt to harmonise, as Grace explained, with `a series of valuable portraits having to be arranged on the walls'. The colours proved too strong for 1920s taste and so were toned down to a dull gilt by the Howard de Waldens. The woven silk pelmets in maroon, green and gold were also supplied by Pugin and Grace; curtains made of the same material are now too fragile to display.

Pictures

These include a series of portraits of late 17th-century Knights of the Garter(the oldest British order of chivalry), mostly after Sir Peter Lely,the finest portraitist of the period. They were put into their present matching frames in the r8th century so that they could be hung together.Over the fireplace is Kneller's portrait of Queen Anne, who may have given this group of pictures to Frances, Lady Myddelton as a perk of her job as a lady-in-waiting.

Tapestries and carpet

The four Mortlake tapestries* tell the story of Cadmus, King of Thebes. They were probably bought by the 2nd Baronet in the 1670s. From the Dining Room end, they comprise:

1 The Rape of Europa
Cadmus's sister Europa is carried off by Zeus, who takes the form of a bull.

2 The Building of Thebes
After Europa disappears, Cadmus is advised to build his new city of Thebes where a cow (his transformed sister) lies down.

3 The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmonia
Cadmus gives Harmonia, the daughter of the gods Ares and Aphrodite, wedding gifts of a robe and a necklace.

4 The Slaying of the Serpent
To get water for Thebes, Cadmus kills a serpent, but is punished with imprisonment. When he later sows the serpent's teeth in the ground, they produce a harvest of armed men.

The Axminster carpet was designed by William Morris in 1879 for St James's Palace and is on loan from Her Majesty the Queen.

Furniture

The pair of giltwood pier-tables and mirrors between the windows was made by the leading London firm of Ince & Mayhew in 1782. They were designed to reflect light back into the room from candles which would be placed on the tables at night. Plate glass of this size was very expensive to produce, and rare before the mid-1770s. The mirrors were valued at £500 in 1795. The settees and chairs of the 1780s are possibly also by Ince & Mayhew. Their original green and white colouring was grained by Crace in the 1840s.
The harpsichord was made in 1742 by Burkat Shudi. Born in Switzerland, Shudi settled in Soho in London in 1739 and rapidly became one of the two finest London makers of the 18th century. This is his earliest signed and dated work, and Shows his mastery of intricate marquetry, made with walnut veneers on an oak carcass.
The two pietra dura (hardstone) cabinets, c.1650 (flanking the fireplace), were probably made in the Grand Ducal workshops of the Medici in Florence and bought by Robert Myddelton in the early 18th century. They were acquired for Chirk by the National Trust in 1991 with the help of the National Art Collections Fundand an anonymous bequest.

The Drawing Room

This is the third of the Neo-classical state rooms created in the 1770s. It replaced a drawing room fitted out around 1668 with dark wainscotting from floor to ceiling, as seen in the Long Gallery.
The plasterwork ceiling by Kilmister is in the same Adam style as the Saloon. Richard Myddelton stripped out the old panelling and rearranged the windows to provide a view over his new Pleasure Ground, but neuer finished the scheme. In 1784 Lord Torrington found that the room had recently been decorated with blue wallpaper. Work was still in progress in 1796, when Lady Sykes was shown round.
In Pugin's time this became known as the Red Drawing Room and he supplied the Brate, fireback and fire-irons in the 1840s. Robert Myddelton Biddulph was distinctly unhappy with the result, writing in 1847: 'I have now had a fair trial made of one of the grates you made
me. I feel it gives little heat in proportion to the fuel it consumes nor do I see how it can be otherwise, from its shape & construction.' Pugin also painted the background of the ceiling its present shade of blue, and hung a `Crimson Plush' flock wallpaper.

Pictures

These are mainly family portraits and include two elegant paintings byFrancis Cotesin the early 1760s of Richard Myddelton and his wife Elizabeth, who made this room (on loan from the National Museums and Galleries of Wales), in their original Rococo frames. The portrait of Elizabeth's mother, Lady Anne Rushout, was painted in 1743 by Allan Ramsay, the greatest Scottish artist of the period. Also displayed are Richard's aunts Mary and Anne — rare portraits painted by the landscapist Peter Tillemans in 1722 — and Col. Robert Myddelton Biddulph's younger brother, Sir Thomas, was Keeper of the Privy Purse to Queen Victoria.

Furniture

The walnut longcase clock, c.1730, is by a local maker, Patrick Thomas. In 1706 Thomas had supplied a set of ninepins and balls for the 3rd Baronet's twelve-year-old son, William. In 1721 he also cleaned the courtyard clock.
The French marble-topped side-table, c.188o0 came via Lady Margaret Myddelton from one of her mother's Astor residences. On it are a Dutch display cabinet of 1753, containing porcelain figures by Jacob Petit, c.1790, and a set of oriental ivory chessmen.

The Long Gallery

This room fills almost the entire length of the east range. It was created in 1670-8 by the 2nd Baronet and has changed very little since then, still retaining portraits and furnishings from that period.
The dark panelling, which gives this room its powerful character, may have been designed by Captain William Winde, who was possibly responsible for the very similar contemporary doorcases on the Great Staircase at nearby Powis Castle. The joinery was the work of Jonathan Hooke, who had earlier been employed at Weston Park across the border in Staffordshire, which was the childhood home of the and Baronet's wife, Elizabeth Wilbraham. Thomas Dugdale carved the capitals and all 43 yards of the cornice.
The slightly incongruous Rococo chimneypieces were added in the mid-18th century. In the 1840s Pugin put up the ribbed ceiling embellished with family heraldry, which probably replaced something similar. He also designed the cast-iron grates and firedogs, which were made by Hardmans, and the Minton tiles, which bear the MB monogram for Myddelton Biddulph.
The room would have originally been used as a place for indoor exercise, where family and guests could walk up and down admiring the portraits or play billiards (a table was installed here in 1686). When Lady Sykes visited in 1796, she found the furnishings 'so crowded together they are seen to great disadvantage'. In the Victorian period, it was still crammed, the contents including `one stuffed leopard mounted on castors'. In the 1920s the Howard de Waldens added to the baronial atmosphere by lining the room with suits of armour.

Pictures

Among the early portraits are (68) Sir Thomas Myddelton, 2nd Bt, painted by Sir Peter Lely about 1670, when he was beginning work on building this room; and his father-in-law (59), Sir Orlando Bridgeman,* who was Lord Chief Justice to Charles II.

Furniture

The 17th-century Dutch ebony cabinet, inlaid with tortoiseshell and ivory, is one of the great treasures of Chirk. The inside is ornamented with repousse (raised) silver panels and scenes from the life of Christ painted on copper panels in the Antwerp studio of Frans Francken the Younger. Charles II gave it to Sir Thomas Myddelton in 1661 as a reward for his loyalty to the royalist cause. It was bought in 1994 with the help of the National Heritage Memorial Fund,the National Art Collections Fund and the Museums and Galleries Commission/Victoria & Albert Museum Purchase Grant Fund.
The dark oak bench* is richly carved in the Dutch style of c. 169o. Very similar benches can be seen at Dunham Masseyin Cheshire.
The Japanese chest, c. 1600, is covered in sharkskin (shagreen) and further decorated with lacquer and mother-of-pearl. It was perhaps acquired by the first Sir Thomas Myddelton, who was a merchant adventurer and one of the founders of the East India Company.
The carved oak armchairs* are Tate 17th-century.

Lighting
The wall-sconces* are silver-plated brass. Six are original 17th-century, four later replicas.

The Chapel

This probably became the chapel in the late 14th or early 15th century. The earlier chapel had probably been in one of the towers of the east range. There was certainly a chaplain on the payroll from at least 1329.
Rich wooden fittings added in the 17th century have now all gone. They included a grand organ and case ordered by the second Sir Thomas Myddelton in 1632, a pulpit, altar, gallery and pews. These probably disappeared in the i8th century, when the Chapel was much neglected. In 1784 Lord Torringtoncomplained that it was 'a poor thing & not kept in that order, that the house of God shou'd be'.
The Chapel was restored by Chirk's more spiritually minded 19th-century owners. In 1854 Pugin's son, E. W. Pugin, inserted a new east window, which was enlarged and recast in the Perpendicular style by Sir Arthur Blomfield in 1894. Blomfield also put up the present roof. Roof bosses and brackets from the old ceiling are displayed on the window ledges. The Chapel ceased to be consecrated around the turn of the 20th century. It has been used for civil marriages since 2003.
About 1912 Lord Howard de Walden made the final changes by building a gallery walkway so that at last the Long Gallery was linked to the south range.He installed the oak floor and panelling, the fireplace and the carved overmantel, which includes 17th-century elements.

Textiles

The late 17th-century Mortlake tapestry* shows Plato's Academy from the Life of Diogenes cycle.

The King's Bedroom and Dressing Room

The narre commemorates the two nights during the Civil War (22 and 28 September 1645) that Charles I spent at Chirk, although it is uncertain whether he actually slept in this room. It has in any case changed greatly since his time. The door to the Long Gallery was inserted when that room was created in the 1670s. Pugin supplied the stone fireplace, and applied the painted graining to the woodwork. The coffered ceiling was probably inspired by his designs. The carved overmantel was added later in the 19th century. The National Trust has restored the room to the way it would have looked in the late 19th century, adding the reproduction flock wallpaper.

Furniture

The bed* bears an inscription on its silvered footboard claiming that it was slept in by Charles I, but the frame was not made until about 1700 (half a century after the King's execution), and it came here from another house, Wanstead, the Essex home of Elizabeth Rushout. It was sold about 1911, but bought back by the late Col. Ririd Myddelton. In its years away from Chirk the bed had been reduced in height, alterations that the National Trust has reversed.
When Lord Torrington visited Chirk in 1784, he could find no `bed that a human creature shou'd be laid in'.

Pictures

The engravings include one after Van Dyck's famous portrait of Charles I and his family, which was first hung here in the 19th century.

The Ante Room

The Ante Room has a vaulted ceiling by Thomas Harrison, who created the East Wing suite of family rooms in the 1820s by enclosing the colonnade under the Long Gallery. As you Look towards the courtyard window note one of the original seven arches completed in 1680 to support the Long Gallery above.

Furnishings

The doors and door frames are believed to be by Harrison with Pugin-designed fittings manufactured by John Hardman & Co. of Birmingham. Note that the door plates and locks are not a perfect fit, increasing the impression that these elements were added later to existing doors.
The gasolier, a 21st-century copy of the original (now in the Pugin Corridor), is also made by Hardmans.

The Bow Drawing Room

The principal room of the East Wing has an impressivefan-vaulted ceiling by Harrison. The stone fireplace designed by Pugin, which was originally colourfully painted, shows the initials of Robert and Fanny Myddelton Biddulph tied together with a lovers' knot.
Late 19th-century photographs of this room show the walls covered in a Gothic wallpaper designed by Pugin and Crace (the Jong-standing interior decoration company who collaborated with Pugin). lt is not yet known whether any of this paper survives under subsequent layersof paper and paint. However, the design has been identified in the V&A catalogue of Pugin's architectural drawings and the original documents still survive at Cole & Son.The present colour scheme dates from the mid to late 20th-century, when Gothic Revival was unfashionable.
The windows give magnificent views of the garden and surrounding countryside. (The large house that can be seen through the North East window is Wynnstay Hall, the former home of Sir Watkin Williams Wynne.)Furnishings

The two large mirrors are in frames designed by Pugin. They were taken down in the last century, probably when the Pugin decoration was largely undone, and put into store. They were returned to their original positions in the Bow Drawing Room early in 2007.

The Library Exhibition Room

This room, with its distinctive Harrison vaulted ceiling, was formerly the family dining room. Late 19th-century photographs show that this room had the same Gothic wallpaper as the Bow Drawing Room, with oak panelling to high dado-height.
Richard Myddelton Biddulph is believed to have surmounted the Pugin fireplace with the oak-panelled bed-end that still survives in situ.
From 1911, when Lord Howard de Walden leased the Castle, this room was for many years used as a schoolroom for his children.
During the Second World War it was again used as a dining room.
When Colonel Riridand Lady Margaret Myddelton moved into the Castle in 1950 they adapted the East Wing and Bachelor Tower into a private apartment and opened the rest of the State Rooms to the public in 1951.
The National Trust is keen to explain the significance of the historic books at Chirk and the book-collecting members of the family, and this room currently houses an exhibition about Chirk's Library.

Furnishings

The gasolier is made up of original parts manufactured by John Hardman & Co. of Birmingham in the mid-19th century.

The Pugin Corridor

The Pugin Corridor also has a vaulted Harrison ceiling, and probably his Gothic doors and door frames. However, in Pugin's time it
also had oak panelling or wainscotting up to shoulder height and an 1826 watercolour appears to show that the Harrison ceiling was grained in imitation of oak. The present herringbone woodblock floor is late 19thcentury; the floor during Pugin's time was stoneflagged with diagonally inset stone tiles.

Furnishings

The two gasoliers to the north and south ends of the passage are original 19th-century restored gasoliers and the third one in the middle is a 21st-century copy. The restoration of the originals and production of the new one was carried out by John Hardman & Co.
The stained glass and metalwork an the corridor windows are all by Hardman to Pugin's designs.

The Library

The Library has been in its current Position since 1875, but there has been a library of one sort or another at Chirk since Sir Thomas Myddelton purchased the castle in 1595. In the 16th and 17th centuries, books would have been laid flat in chests with their titles written on the opposite side to the spine on the edges of the pages. In the 18th century, brothers Robert and John Myddelton were serious book collectors living in London, but neuer expected to inherit a castle in which to house their collection.
When Robert did inherit in 1718 he was already 4o years old. He and John brought their collections of books to the Castle and there was talk of building a new library at Chirk and using the influential architect James Gibbs to create it. Robert wrote to his brother: "The exact draft of [the] plan of the intended Library came to hand & I have shewed them to Mr Gibbs who built the Church in the Strand who will design
something handsome...." However, it has not yet been established whether this intended library was ever actually realised or, indeed, whether it was intended for Chirk or for a London residence. The only evidence of a dedicated library room being built is gleaned from the Thomas Harrison plans of 1820; at that time the library was at the top of the Bachelor Tower and on a level with the firstfloor state rooms.
When Harrison built the suite of family rooms in the East Wing, he left the library where it was in the Bachelor Tower and created two bedrooms with dressing rooms on the ground floor. It is possible that the bedroom and dressing room where the current library is situated remained as such until 1875.
In an 1862 watercolour of the Pugin Corridor by Mary Myddelton Biddulph books can be seen through the doorway in the Ante Room. The bookcase (now a doorway) was similar to the other display cases in the Ante Room and it is a reasonable supposition that all three cases contained books. In the 1872 inventory 1,800 books were listed in the `Library' (although it is not clear in which room this was) with a further 132 quartos and folios in two bookcases in the Long Gallery.
By 1875 work was being carried out by Richard and Catherine Myddelton Biddulph to create the current library and to reunite all the books in one room. The books remained here until the Myddelton sale of 2004. The National Trust was able to secure just over 8o per cent of the books, which have now been returned to their former positions in the Library.
The collection is significant because it contains many rare 16th- and 17th-century books still in their original bindings. There are many classical and religious books in both Latin and Greek and many books with inscriptions by the family. One of the most iconic books from this period is the edition of Bibl Bach issued by the London printer Robert Barker in 1630.
This third edition was based on Bishop William Morgan's translation of the Bible into Welsh. This pocket Bible edition has particular significance for Chirk as the publication was sponsored by Sir Thomas Myddelton, who purchased the Chirk estate in 1595. It is credited with helping to save the Welsh language from extinction and is one of the very few copies on public display. The oldest book in the Library is Perottus Cornucopiae (1513).

Furnishings

The coffered ceiling with applied quatrefoils and stencil-decorated coving are in the style of Pugin but are not particularly well executed. They are not to Pugin's normally very high standards, possibly because he didn't directly oversee the work. The paper quatrefoils bear the monogram `M' for Myddelton, rather than `MB' for Myddelton Biddulph, which may indicate that this detail was changed when Richard changed the family name back to Myddelton in 1899.

The Servants' Hall

This smoke-stained room is one of the most atmospheric parts of the castle, where the fire is regularly lit.
It occupies a room on the ground floor of the south range next to the old brew-house. It was built in 1529 as a new dining hall to replace that next to the chapel. In the early 17th century it was superseded by a new hall in the north range, and became the plumbers' workshop.
It became the Servants' Hall in 1762, when there would have been a house stall of around 40. Some of there servants are represented in the darkened portraits that hang round the room. They would have taken their meals here, seated in strict order of precedence at the long tables, with the senior servants closest to the fire. They would have helped themselves to beer from the barrel on the trolley, as it was wheeled up and down the tables. The punishments for indulging too freely and for other misdemeanours are speit out in the rules to the left of the fireplace.

Furniture

The long oak tables were already standing in the old Great Hall in 1631. The benches are 18th-century.
The `tavern' clock, which bears the Myddelton 'hand' crest (the emblem of baronets), was made in 1763 by John Jones of Chester for this room.
Over the cupboard are elm figures carved by Nicholas Needham in 1673 for the old main staircase and coloured by Thomas ffrancis in 1675. The greyhounds* flanking the mantelpiece once formed newel posts on the same stairs.

Pictures

The servants' portraits* include an image of Welch Wilkes, the castle scullion (menial servant), who is shown ringing the bell in the courtyard. Left of the fireplace, the full-length portrait of 'John Wilton' (probably John Wilkes) was painted by a Whitmore' in 1729.
The disabled son of a servant at Chirk, Wilton was taken on by Sir Richard Myddelton, 3rd Bt, in the early i8th century as an odd-job man, and christened Decus Culinae — 'the Ornament of the Kitchen'. He died at Chirk in 1751 in
his late fifties. There are also two portraits of itinerant Irish musicians.

Metalwork

The pewter is English, mostly18th-century, and is stamped `Chirk Castle' or with the Myddelton 'hand'.
The late 18th-century leather fire buckets are marked `RM' for Richard Myddelton.

The Adam's Tower

This is the least altered of all Chirk's medieval towers. The interiors give a strong sense of how it would have been in the Middle Ages, although there were then narrow arrow slits rather than mullioned windows, and the bare stone walls would have been softened by tapestries and furniture. It may have been occupied by the constable of Chirk, who looked after the castle on behalf of its absentee owner..'
The ground floor was the guard room, where Chirk's small militia would have kept their weapons. The spiral staircase leads down to the dungeon in the basement.


Imprisoned at Chirk

In 1422 the constable, Thomas Strange, transported fifteen French prisoners from Chirk to London, who may have been captured during the Agincourt campaign seven years before.Payments to the local blacksmith in 1529 make it clear that prisoners were still being kept in chains. By 1778, when Pennant visited, conditions had improved: 'The captives endure but a short and easy confinement; and even that passes imperceptibly, amidst the good cheer and generous liquors bestowed on them by the kind warder

The dungeon is a deep semicircular chamber, which had to be quarried out of the solid rock.


The Muniment Room would have been used to store all the Myddelton family and estate papers. Many of there are now deposited in the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth. In the next room there are three `murder holes' in the floor, through which the castle garrison could drop stones or boiling liquids on their attackers
The second floor contains the bedroom used by the first Sir Thomas Myddelton after he had handed over the castle to his son in 1612. In 1631 it contained his `great bedstead', together with its `curtaines valence & curtaine Rods, fetherbed, bolster, i pillowe, i Blankett, one Tapestrie Coveringe'. His clothes included `one paire of velvet hose and jerkin, one satten
doublet and a taffety jerkin'. It has changed very little since then, apart from the medieval-style fireplace added by Lord Howard de Walden, who used this room as his study.
At the far end of the corridor is the Magistrate's Court. The room takes its name from the early 17th-century plasterwork, which includes the figure of a symbolically blind and barefoot magistrate, holding a pair of scales and the sword ofjustice. As local JPs, the Myddeltons would have dispensed justice at Chirk, but it is not certain whether this would ever have happened here. The plasterwork is naively executed, but important, as the only surviving pre-Civil War decoration in the castle.

The East Wing and the 19th-century designers of Chirk

The East Wing comprises what were formerly private family apartments. The East Wing Project sets out to explain the history of the family apartments and bring their evolution right up to date by demonstrating how the rooms are now being researched, conserved and partially restored. It is an important opportunity to do justice to this previously inaccessible wing of the castle and explain the Impact of the famous names associated with it. As in so many historic homes, each generation of inhabitants of Chirk has altered the work of its predecessors. The East Wing bears particular testimony to that tradition, and in the i9th century this side of the castle was remodelled and redecorated by several different architects, designers and craftsmen, including names of national and international significance: Harrison, Pugin, Hardman and Crace.
The Chester architect Thomas Harrison (1744-1829)was commissioned by Charlotte Myddelton in 1820 to create a suite of family apartments in the East Wing (as opposed to the larger, more imposing state rooms in the North Wing). Harrison began the re-medievalisation of the castle in the neo-Gothic Revival style. He transformed what was then an open colonnade into a series of rooms, put up lath-and-plaster vaults an the ceilings, and added a corridor onto the courtyard front.
After the death of his mother in 1843,Col. Robert Myddelton and his wife Fanny commissioned Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (1812-52), the genius of the Gothic Revival movement, to mastermind the redecoration of the whole of the castle, not just the East Wing. Between 1846 and 1849, Pugin made designs for painted decoration and stencilling, wallpaper, fireplaces, stained glass, carved panelling, metalwork, light fittings, tiles, furniture and curtains. Pugin's designs for Chirk were carried out and supplied by John Hardman & Co. of Birmingham and the interior furnisher J. G. Crace.
John Hardman (1811-67)was Pugin's friend and collaborator. He produced Pugin's metal-

The East Wing and the 19th-century designers of Chirk

The East Wing comprises what were formerly private family apartments. The East Wing Project sets out to explain the history of the family apartments and bring their evolution right up to date by demonstrating how the rooms are now being researched, conserved and partially restored. It is an important opportunity to do justice to this previously inaccessible wing of the castle and explain the Impact of the famous names associated with it. As in so many historic homes, each generation of inhabitants of Chirk has altered the work of its predecessors. The East Wing bears particular testimony to that tradition, and in the i9th century this side of the castle was remodelled and redecorated by several different architects, designers and craftsmen, including names of national and international significance: Harrison, Pugin, Hardman and Crace.
The Chester architect Thomas Harrison (1744-1829)was commissioned by Charlotte Myddelton in 1820 to create a suite of family apartments in the East Wing (as opposed to the larger, more imposing state rooms in the North Wing). Harrison began the re-medievalisation of the castle in the neo-Gothic Revival style. He transformed what was then an open colonnade into a series of rooms, put up lath-and-plaster vaults an the ceilings, and added a corridor onto the courtyard front.
After the death of his mother in 1843,Col. Robert Myddelton and his wife Fanny commissioned Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (1812-52), the genius of the Gothic Revival movement, to mastermind the redecoration of the whole of the castle, not just the East Wing. Between 1846 and 1849, Pugin made designs for painted decoration and stencilling, wallpaper, fireplaces, stained glass, carved panelling, metalwork, light fittings, tiles, furniture and curtains. Pugin's designs for Chirk were carried out and supplied by John Hardman & Co. of Birmingham and the interior furnisher J. G. Crace.
John Hardman (1811-67)was Pugin's friend and collaborator. He produced Pugin's metal- work and stained-glass designs for Chirk, including heraldic panels for windows, doorknobs and hinges, firebacks and grates. Despite Pugin's Gothic style becoming unfashionable in the mid-20th century and being erased from Chirk, significant elements of Hardman's work survive. Out of all of Pugin's collaborators, Hardman's is the only firm still in production today.
John Gregory Crace(1809-89) was also a close friend and associate of Pugin, from 1843 until the architect's death. Crace worked closely with Pugin an many of his most important commissions, including the decoration of the interior of the new Palace of Westminster,
and supplied the furniture for The Grange, Pugin's own home. At Chirk he was responsible for extensive decorative schemes including redecoration of the uth- and 18th-century rooms and throughout the East Wing in the Gothic Revival style.
Crace completed those commissions left unfinished at Pugin's death, including Abney Hall, Cheadleand Scarisbrick Hall, Lancashire, using Pugin's original drawings. At Chirk most of his decorative schemes were swept away in the latter half of the 20th century.

The Park

Today, you approach the castle from the north through the Upper Park, along a road first opened in 1772. Peter Tillemans's painting of this same view about 1720 (illustrated below) shows the castle proudly dominating a richly wooded park landscape — as it still does.
The park and the wider estate have always been a key element in the story of Chirk. They provided protection from would-be attackers, and income, food, sport and status for the owners of the castle. Despite periods of neglect, civil war, financial crisis and land sales, Chirk's continuity of ownership and management since 1595 has preserved an important historic landscape and endowed it with rare nature conservation interest. Chirk is now one of the richest sites in Wales for saproxylic invertebrates — insects that feed on the dead and dying wood of ancient trees. A recent survey has identified no fewer than 174 species of beetle and so species of flies.

Offa's Dyke

Chirk Castle was not the first fortification built by the English in this area to subdue the Welsh. Running parallel to the approach road to the castle, on your right, are the remains of Offa's Dyke. Offa, King of Mercia (757-96), built this monumental earth rampart and ditch to protect his kingdom from raids by neighbouring Welsh tribes. Stretching 120 miles, Offa's Dyke was the largest such earthwork of the period in Europe. Part of the Chirk section of rampart was flattened to make a cart track in 1758, but you can still see an impressive section south of Home Farm.

A medieval hunting park

There has probably been a deer-park at Chirk ever since the castle was built. By 1329 two carpenters were already being employed to repair the fence of oak palings that surrounded it. Part of the earth bank that formed the original park boundary still survives. The park keeper was paid a penny a day to look after the deer, which were kept for food and hunting. The accounts for 1329 also include payments for 'the lord's wolf-hound and her eight puppies' and for nine sparrowhawks.
The original park (later known as Lower Park) lay to the south of the castle between it and the River Ceiriog in the valley below. It was planted with woodland (comprising some 100 acres by 1391-2), which was periodically felled to yield a crop of timber, pollarded to make hop poles, or burnt for charcoal. Even so, the park still contains ancient oaks and hornbeams — former field boundary trees — that may be medieval in origin.
The estate seems to have been neglected during the 14th and early i sth centuries. However, a survey carried out for the Earl of Leicester in the 1560s mentions that 'the ground [is] stony & hath many rocks in yt, but yet yt beareth good grasse'. By this date, there were three parks at Chirk, including Black Park to the east of the castle near Chirk Green.
When Sir Thomas Myddelton II took over the estate from his father in 1612, he expanded the park to the north towards New Hall (the present entrance) and to the west (later known as Upper Park). From 1675 the znd Baronet expanded Lower Park to the east to take in part of the old formal garden. His brother and successor, the 3rd Baronet, continued to enrich the park, planting oaks and walnuts in 1702.

The Davies gates

The exit from the park passes close to the magnificent gates made by the Davies brothers of Croes Foel, Bersham, between about 1712 and 1719. They are masterpieces of the Welsh ironsmith's art, combining both wrought and cast iron, and prominently featuring the wolf supporters from the Myddelton coat of arms. The gates began life as part of an ironwork screen fronting the formal forecourt on the north side of the castle. When the screen was dismantled in 1770, the gates were moved by William Emes to the New Hall entrance to the park, where they were sited between two lodges. They were reassembled in their present Position in 1888 as the grand overture to a new drive created after the coming of the railway to Chirk.

William Emes
The whole park was comprehensively landscaped for the first time between about 1764 and the late 178os by the designer William Emes, who worked on many parks in the Midlands and North Wales. Emes conceived an integrated design of sweeping lawns bounded by irregular blocks of woodland and interspersed with clumps of trees around the lake, which was modified from earlier i8thcentury formal ponds to the north of the castle. Ha-has (concealed ditches) were used so as not to restrict the views north and west towards Upper Park. He also planted thousands oftrees and laid out new approaches to the castle across the park. His scheme survives substantially intact.
A visitor in the early i9th century described the woodland to the south and east of the castle: 'The castle is surrounded by a spacious park, richly clothed with an abundance and diversity of the finest wood. The Oaks are particularly remarkable; being very numerous, and in height and straightness of trunk surpassing the tallest fir I ever saw. Several of this species of tree, however, we remarked at the entrance into the park, very much unlike their stately neighbours, having thick huge trunks and gradually decaying through excess of age.' These last were the survivors of medieval pollarded trees.

Home Farm

This group of buildings, which nestles in a dip to the north-west of the castle, was remodelled and extended by E.W. Pugin in the mid-19th century. The derelict remains of the Victorian gas works can still be seen behind Home Farm. Home Farm house was converted into a basecamp for volunteers in 1992. Some of the other buildings continue to serve the traditional needs of the estate — as covered storage for building materials. The rooms round the central courtyard now provide essential facilities for visitors to the castle.

The estate today

The estate has shrunk since the late 19th century, as the Myddeltons were obliged to sell land to meet the increasing costs of running the castle. But after the Second World War, Lady Margaret Myddelton in particular did much to replenish the neglected woodlands. When Chirk passed to the National Trust in 1981, it came with only 195 hectares of the immediately surrounding parkland. However, the Trust works together with the Myddelton family and their tenants, who still farm much of the landscape around the castle, to ensure that its historical and conservation importance is protected and enhanced.

The Garden

The 17th-century formal garden

In 1653 the second Sir Thomas Myddelton laid out a garden to the east of the castle in the formal style favoured by the French king. Sir Thomas may have been quietly making a political point, as the French were then harbouring the exiled Charles II, to whom he had recently transferred his allegiance. He certainly saw it as a way of providing work for his poorer tenants (see panel).
Badeslade's1735 view shows the garden as somewhat modified in the early 18th century: neat compartments laid out around a central vista stretching away to the east, including terraced lawns, a bowling green and a kitchen garden boxed in by yew hedges. The effect was best appreciated from the first-floor Long Gallery built by his son. It was in a banqueting house in the kitchen garden in 1684 that the Duke of Beaufort was entertained with `a collation of choice fruit and wines'.



Sir Thomas Myddelton II an his mid-17th-century garden:

'When first, I did begin, to make This Garden, I did undertake,
A worke, I knew not when begunn, What it would Cost, ere it was donn,
But I repent not, for ye poore,

Doe there finde worke; had none before.

I found some worke for every trade,

Some walles did make, some Arbours made, Some mowed ye Allys; some I putt,
To preuine ye vines, and Hedges cutt,

And some poore weomen, that had neede,
I kept, & payd them, for to weede.'

Landscaping Chirk

When William Emes was called in about 1764, he retained much of the 17th-century formal layout, modifying it with informal walks and plantings of trees and shrubs.

The garden today

The bones of the present garden date back no farther than the late 19th century, when the Myddeltons planted the yew topiary and hedges. Since then, the garden has been revived, neglected and revived once more. The Howard de Waldens, who leased the castle from 1911 to 1946, had the money to garden on the grand scale and to employ the leading garden designer Norah Lindsayto advise them. They built a vast and complex herbaceous border beside the Upper Lawn, which required a large garden staff to maintain the regime of carefully staked plants. Inevitably, it was one of the first things to be sacrificed during the Second World War, when gardeners were hard to find. The rest of the garden also ran to seed, and so Col. Ririd and Lady Margaret Myddelton faced a daunting task when they wanted to restore the garden in the 1950s. They were not helped by the rather poor, light soil and the exposed position of the garden 213 metres above sea level. It is a tribute to their imagination and energy that so much has been achieved.

Tour of the Garden

Most of the garden is laid out on the gentle slopes below the east front of the castle. This tour takes a roughly clockwise route round the principalfeatures. For a more detailed description, see the separate garden leajlet.

The Screen

You enter the garden through what remained of the Davies gate-screen after the gates had been removed from the north forecourt in 177o .

The Castle Borders

Scrambling up the North-East (Bachelor's) Tower is the climbing Hydrangea petiolaris. Between the drum towers on the east front is a mixed border, which includes roses, aromatic shrubs, celastrus and jasmine, with pastel-shaded herbaceous perennials planted between.

The Formal Garden

The topiary yew cones and hedge were planted after 1872 by Richard Myddelton Biddulph, who was a stickler for precise pruning. Norah Lindsay suggested that the cones should be grown larger to improve their scale in relation to the castle. This created the separate characters we see today.

The Rose Garden

These flower-beds are said to have been laid out by Algernon, the artistically minded son of Richard Myddelton Biddulph. The sundial was probably made by the mason William Probert in 1696. The lead cherub was a present to Lady Margaret from her stepfather, the Ist Lord Astor of Hever.

The Upper Lawn

You now enter a more informally planted expanse of grass, which slopes gently down to the south-east. On the left is a long mixed border of shrubs and herbaceous plants separated into three sections by flowering cherries. The Myddeltons planted it after the Second World War as a more practical alternative to the Howard de Waldens' derelict herbaceous border.
Opposite the herbaceous border is an area of rough grass, planted with Chilean fire bushes, Magnolia salicifolia and rhododendron varieties. Towering over them are an impressive Cedar of Lebanon and a larch, which is a very early planting of a species introduced to Britain from central Europe in 1620; it may be a survivor from the layout shown in Badeslade's view.

The Lower Lawn

The principal feature is the thatched hawkhouse. This was built an the site of Emes's orangery as a conservatory by Henry Weeks in 1854 to a design by E.W. Pugin. Lord Howard de Walden added the thatched roof and used it to house his falcons. The National Trust restored the building in the early 198os following a serious fire.
Behind the hawk-house is a rock bank where a path leads to a 14th-century octagonal font, which was probably brought from Valle Crucis Abbey near Llangollen in the 19th century.

The Wild Garden

The wooded area beyond is filled with rhododendrons, some of which were introduced from Surrey in the 194os, others more recently. They include Rhododendron 'Lady Violet Astor', which is named after Lady Margaret's mother.
The Wild Garden is divided from the Pleasure Ground Wood by the Lime Avenue, which is a survival of the central axis of the old formal garden, visible on the Badeslade view. Silhouetted against the sky at the top of the slope is a version of the Farnese Hercules, made in 1720 by John Van Nost. The original sculpture, which shows Hercules leaning on his club and dressed in a lion skin, is one of the most famous statues of classical antiquity. The Chirk version originally decorated the north courtyard, together with a matching statue of Mars.In 177o it was removed to an obscure woodland Spot, from where it was winched by helicopter to its present position in 1983. lt stands on a new plinth which bears an inscription referring to its aerial adventure.
The gates halfway along the avenue lead into the Pleasure Ground Wood, an area filled with snowdrops in February, followed by bluebells, foxgloves and other wild plants. There are good views of the castle and over the historic parkland from here. The main path meanders through to the pavilion.
The terrace and ha-ha were built by Emes to exploit the superb views over the valley below. A Neo-classical garden pavilion, called the `Retreat seat' and probably designed by Emes, was built at the end of the terrace in 1767.
The yew hedge that backs the terrace was planted in the late i9th century.



The Shrub Garden

The large 19th-century Rhododendron arboreum offers shelter to tender exotics such as Davidia, Pieris, Magnolia and the white-flowered Eucryphia glutinosa, which shades a small Pool. The path leads past a pets' cemetery, where headstones mark the graves of the Myddeltons' much-loved dogs. At the end of the path you re-enter the Formal Garden beside the `Crownin-Cushion' yew topiary.

Chirk through seven centuries

Medieval Chirk: A border fortress

The ancient Welsh lordship of Chirkland lies at a strategically important point in the Welsh Marches, where English armier often entered Wales on campaigns of conquest. Chirk Castle was born out of conflict, and its early history is bloody. Its medieval owners were among the most powerful noblemen at the English court, and many of them met violent ends in the convoluted and dangerous politics of the 14th and 15th centuries. As a result, Chirk changed hands many times.

Roger Mortimer, builder of the castle (?1256-1326)

In 1282 Edward I began his second campaign to subdue the rebellious princes of Wales.
In the same year, Chirkland was confiscated from Llywelyn ap Gruffydd ap Madog, 'the dragon of Chirk', and granted to Roger Mortimer, who was a captain in Edward's invading army. His third son, Roger, built the castle between about 1295 (when the King passed briefly through Chirk) and 1310 as one of a ring of ten fortresses designed to encircle Gwynedd, the most dangerous of the rebel Welsh princedoms. The architect may have been the Master of the King's Works in Wales, James of St George, who was responsible for building the castles at Harlech, Caernarfon, Conwy and Beaumaris. Beaumaris, where work also started in 1295, is particularly similar in design to Chirk.
Mortimer was appointed a Justice of Wales by Edward II and became an increasingly important figure in the region. However, in 1322 he was rash enough to take up arms against the King's favourite, Hugh Despenser. For his rebellion, he was thrown into the Tower of London, where he died in 1326.

1322-1415: The Earls of ArundelChirk was granted to Edmund Fitzalan, 2nd Earl of Arundel, but his reign was to be brief. In 1326 Roger Mortimer's nephew and namesake, Roger Mortimer of Wigmore, who had been imprisoned with him, managed to escape from the Tower. He sided with Queen Isabella, 'the
she-wolf of France', against her husband Edward II, whom they deposed and murdered. Arundel was also beheaded, at Hereford in 1326 without trial. With his mistress Isabella, Mortimer ruled as an increasingly hated regent for the next four years.
In 133o the young Edward IIIseized power back from Mortimer, who was executed. Mortimer had made himself so loathed in Chirkland that, when news of his fall reached the castle, the tenants ransacked the place. The 2nd Earl's son, Richard (nicknamed `Copped Hat'), resumed control of Chirk in 1334. By skilful investment and money-lending, the 3rd Earl made himself the richest man in England in the mid-14th century. He spent large sums on remodelling Arundel Castle, his principal home, but also on fending off rival claims to the lordship of Chirkland from the Mortimer family, who were still a major force in North Wales. He was also one of Edward III's most distinguished commanders, playing a leading role in the battle of Crecy in 1346. Unusually for medieval owners of Chirk, he died in his bed after a long life.
His son, Richard, 4th Earl of Arundel, had a shorter span. Although he carried Richard II's crown at his coronation in 1377, he later quarrelled with the King. When Arundel was convicted of treason in 1397, he went calmly to his death, `no more shrinking or changing colour than if he were going to a banquet'. During his short life, he lavished large sums on his other border castles at Holt and Shrawardine (renamed Castle Philippa in honour of his young bride).
Thomas, 5th Earl of Arundel, not surprisingly, sided with Henry IV, when he ousted Richard II in 1399. He also helped to confront the rebellion of Owain Glyn Dwr, which posed a serious threat to the Arundels, who by the end of the 14th century had become the second most powerful landowners in Wales. It was during this campaign that a dose friendship was forged between the 5th Earl and the young Prince Hal, who, as Henry V, asked him to find a peaceful solution to the conflict that had ravaged Wales. Arundel also played an important part in Henry V's campaigns in France during the Hundred Years War. He died of dysentery contracted at the siege of Harfleur in 1415, and because he
had no son, his Chirk estates reverted to the Crown.

Tudor Chirk

1439-64: The Beauforts
In 1439 Chirkland was bought by Cardinal Henry Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester, a wealthy and powerful member of Henry VI'sCouncil. In 1447 he passed it to his nephew, the 2nd Duke of Somerset, who was one of the leaders of the Lancastrian side in the War of the Roses. Both he and his son Henry were to be consumed in the growing turmoil of the next 30 years. On Henry's execution in 1464, Chirk passed to Richard, Duke of Gloucester (the future Richard III).

1475-95: Sir William Stanley

In 1475 the Duke of Gloucester exchanged Chirk for land in Yorkshire with Sir William Stanley, who 'welle repayred' the castle, according to the antiquary John Leland. Stanley repaid Richard by refusing to commit his forte of 3,000 horsemen at the Battle of Bosworth Fielduntil the outcome was clear. He then intervened at the crucial moment to back Richard's opponent, Henry Tudor. For this support, Henry gratefully made him Lord Chamberlain and a Knight of the Garter. However, Stanley still failed to learn his lesson. In 1495 he was revealed as a conspirator in the Yorkist plot of Perkin Warbeck against Henry VII, and was beheaded.

1495-1563: A Crown estate

The Tudors kept a tight hold on the Chirk estates, rewarding officials in the royal household with posts on the Chirk staff.
It was these officials who were probably responsible for rebuilding the castle's south range in 1529.
In 1563 Queen Elizabeth granted Chirk to her favourite, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. He also acquired other crown lands in North Wales, much to the resentment oflocal gentry, who had been quietly appropriating their revenues for themselves. A survey carried out for the Earl in the 1560s (illustrated below) noted gloomily, 'This Castle though yt doth seeme very fayre is utterly ruinous, the Tymber rotten, and wthout hope of well repairinge.' But by 1587, when Churchyard wrote in praise of Chirk, the castle fabric at least seems to have been repaired.
After Leicester died in 1588, Chirk passed through several different hands until 14 August 1595, when it was sold for £5,000 to Thomas Myddelton. A new chapter in the story of Chirk opens an that day.

The Myddeltons of Chirk

The wolf s head on the Myddelton coat of arms recalls a distant ancestor, Blaidd Rhudd (the `Bloody Wolf) of Meirionydd. The family adopted the Myddelton surname on the marriage about 1394 of Ririd to Cicely Myddelton, who came from Middleton in Shropshire (the spelling varied for many years). The Myddeltons' links with Denbighshire go back to the 13th century and by the mid-16th century they were holding high office here.

Sir Thomas Myddelton I (1 5 5 0-1 6 3 1)

He was the fourth son of Richard Myddelton, governor of Denbigh Castle. Like many ambitious younger sons in the Principality at that time, he followed the Welsh Tudors to London, made his fortune and reinvested it back in his native land.
Starting out as apprentice to a London grocer, Thomas Myddelton set up a successful business trading in sugar with the Low Countries. He was a founder-member of the East India Company and had shares in the Virginia Company. He also helped to finance expeditions by the great Elizabethan privateers Drake, Ralegh and Hawkins. The risks were high, but the rewards could be spectacular. The capture ofa Portuguese carrack, theMadre de Dios, in 1592 was particularly lucrative for him.
In the mid-1590s Thomas turned increasingly from trade to finance and property. He bought a handsome house in the City of London and built a country seat at Stansted Mountfichetin Essex, receiving a knighthood in 16o3 and serving as Lord Mayor of London in 1613. His younger brother Hugh benefited all Londoners by founding the New River Company, which provided the capital with its first reliable supply of piped water.
But Sir Thomas never forgot his Welsh roots. Buying Chirk in 1595 was the start ofa rapid and expensive campaign, which made him the greatest landowner in Denbighshire by the end of the century. He helped to develop the copper mines at Neath and supported Welsh agriculture by loaning money to the local gentry. A pious Puritan, in 1630 he also sponsored the first popular edition of the Bible in Welsh, 'a volume of decent size and easy to carry', according to the introduction. At Chirk, Sir Thomas built a new north range, which included a hall and kitchen on the ground floor, with a dining room and smaller drawing room above — the core of the present state rooms.

Civil War

Sir Thomas Myddelton II (1586-1666)

The first Thomas's eldest son settled at Chirk in 1612 on his marriage to Margaret Savile. She died the following year, but by his second wife, Mary Napier of Luton Hoo, he had thirteen children. To accommodate this large family, he remodelled the castle and constructed the `new building and the toure', completing the work in 1636, according to an inscription in the courtyard.
As MP for Denbighshire from 1625, he was one of the few leading figures in North Wales to support Parliament's growing Opposition to Charles I. In 1642 his royalist neighboursformed an alliance against him, and the following January the castle was seized by 100 Wrexham militiamen on the King's orders. Despite losing his home, Sir Thomas served from June 1643 as Sergeant Major-General of the Parliamentary forces in North Wales. By 1644 his army had captured much of north-east Wales, including Oswestry, Welshpool and nearby Powis Castle. However, he failed to retake Chirk, as he was unwilling — perhaps not surprisingly — to use artillery on his own home. Ultimately, money proved more successful than force. In February 1646 Sir John Watts was paid to surrender the castle in good order, and Sir Thomas's eldest son, also named Thomas, moved back in as governor.

The royalist governor of Chirk, John Watts, describes Sir Thomas Myddelton's attempts to retake the castle in 1644:`Their Engineeres attempted to worke into the Castle with Iron Crowes and Pickers, under great plancks and tables, which they had erected against the Castle side for their shelter; but my stones beate them of; they acknowledged in Oswestry they had 31 slaine, and 43 others hurte; their prime Engineere was slain by the Castle side; they are very sadd for him.'

Sir Thomas was a moderate Presbyterianand by 1651 he had become disenchanted with the increasingly authoritarian Parliamentary regime. By 1659 he was openly supporting the return of the exiled Charles II, backing Sir George Booth's abortive Cheshire rising for the King. Chirk was besieged once again, this time by a Parliamentary army under General John Lambert, who forced the younger Thomas Myddelton to surrender, when his water supply ran out. Lambert was ordered by Parliament to `see that Chirke Castle be demolished and made untenable'. Fortunately, he pulled down only the east wall and the towers at either end.
The Restoration of Charles II in 166o also restored Chirk to Sir Thomas Myddelton, but he was faced with the expensive task of repairing the battered fabric and recovering his property sold from the castle by the occupying garrison. Such was the devastation that it was at least ten years before the family could move back in. Sir Thomas could not afford to accept the peerage offered by the grateful King, but instead took the famous ebony cabinet, which is displayed in the Long Gallery.

Sir Thomas Myddelton III, ist Bt (1624-63)

The third Sir Thomas received the less onerous honour of a baronetcy in 1660, but died only three years later, leaving a twelve-year-old son as his heir. Between 1666, when the second Sir Thomas died, and 1672, when the 2nd Baronet came of age, the castle was administered by the young boy's elderly grandmother, Dame Mary.

Chirk restored

Sir Thomas Myddelton IV, 2nd Bt (1651-84)

The fourth Sir Thomas was inspired to redecorate the house by the Grand Tour he made through France and Italy in 1671. After his marriage in 1673 to Elizabeth Wilbraham, he was advised in these schemes by his mother-in-law, Lady Wilbraham of Weston, who supplied trusted craftsmen to create the panelling for the new Long Gallery in the rebuilt east range. The Chirk accounts detail large payments for new furniture and paintings: the 2nd Baronet seems to have been vain about his appearance, commissioning no fewer than three portraits of himself. All this activity came to a temporary halt in 1675 with Elizabeth's death in childbirth; their son, `our little master', who was hastily christened Thomas, died only three days later. Sir Thomas commissioned the touching monument in Chirk church by John Bushnell,which shows Elizabeth suckling their dying child at her breast.
Sir Thomas died in 1684 at the age of only 32. He had fathered five sons by two wives, but none of them survived infancy. His only daughter Charlotte inherited £2o,000, which attracted grand suitors: her first husband was the 6th Earl of Warwick, her second the essayist Joseph Addison. The Chirk estate and the family title passed to Sir Thomas's younger brother, Richard.



The Duke of Beaufort visits Chirk in 1684

The Duke as Lord President of Wales made a stately progress through Wales, being received by most of the great families in the Principality. In January 1684 Sir Richard had ordered `spice, sugar, flint glassec, almonds, Orenges, and lemonds, muske, Amber greese [a flavouring for sauces], fesh, cakes and other things' to welcome the Duke, but he failed to turn up. Despite this, 'a very magnificent and splendid enterteinment' was laid on, when he did finally arrive in July 1684.

Sir Richard Myddelton, 3rd Bt (1655-1716)

As a fourth son, Richard was destined for the Church, but after his elder brothers died and he moved closer to inheriting Chirk, he turned to politics. In 1681 he contested the old family seat of Denbighshire, but was defeated by Sir John Trevor. He revived an old family feud with the Trevors by disputing the result, alleging corruption, and challenging Sir John to a duel. The Duke of Somerset, as Lord President of Wales, managed to resolve the argument, and in 1685 (the year after he inherited Chirk) Sir Richard was returned for the county seat, which he continued to represent for the next 32 years. For the rest of the 18th century, the Myddeltons remained powerful figures in the county as MPs and Colonels of the Denbighshire Militia.
Sir Richard married Frances Whitmore, a Shropshire heiress, and considerably extended the already substantial Chirk estates.
Sir Richard was succeeded in 1716 by his only son, William, who died unmarried just two years later, whereupon the baronetcy became extinct.


The 18th century

Robert Myddelton (1678-1733)

In 1718 Chirk passed to a cousin, Robert Myddelton, who was a son of the ist Baronet's younger brother. Never expecting to inherit the estate, Robert Myddelton had trained as a lawyer in London, but settled in nearby Shrewsbury, where he became Recorder in 1710. He was a talented classical scholar, with an interest in literature and the visual arts, which probably encouraged him to commission the wrought-iron gates and screen and the statues of Mars and Hercules for the forecourt. He also commissioned a group of paintings by Tillemans, which includes a view of the castle that combines topographical accuracy with picturesque figures. He had no children, and so was succeeded by his younger brother, John (1685-1747), who was also a patron of both the arts and science.


Richard Myddelton (1726-95)

At Chirk, marriage often encouraged modernisation. So it was in 1761, when John Myddelton's son Richard wed Elizabeth Rushout of Northwick Park in Gloucestershire, which had been remodelled by Lord Burlington in the classical style 3o years earlier. About the same time, Richard started to redecorate the principal state rooms, preferring the latest Neo-classical fashion of the period to the `good Modern Gothick' proposed by his first architect. The Grand Staircase, State Dining Room, Saloon and Drawing Room were all transformed. He also spent large sums modernising the pleasure grounds and park, but work paused in 1772 an the death of his first wife. When Elizabeth Sykes visited
in 1796, the work was still not finished. She conceded that 'when completed it will be very magnificent and strikingly singular', but she regretted that Myddelton had not `preserved within more the character of our ancient Baron's Castle, a delightful opportunity offered of strikeing further out of the hacknied finishing of our modern Houses.'
Richard Myddelton's only son, another Richard, was a bachelor, Colonel of the Denbighshire Militia, and 'a prudent man with a clear estate' (according to Lord Torrington). To complete the Jong-neglected redecoration, he turned to a local architect, John Cooper, who was a pupil of the leading Neo-classicist James Wyatt. But he outlived his father by only a year, and so in 1796 the estate was divided between his three sisters.

The 19th century

Remaking medieval Chirk

The eldest sister, Charlotte, inherited the castle, and in 1801 married Robert Biddulph of Ledbury, who changed his surname to Myddelton Biddulph to reflect his good fortune. After he died young in 1814, she managed the estate until their son Robert came of age in 1826.
She also began the process of remedievalising Chirk by employing Thomas Harrison of Chester to refit the ground floor of the east range in the Gothic Revival style. It was not, however, until after his mother's death in 1843 that Colonel Robert Myddelton Biddulph took this process a stage further.
In 1846 Colonel Myddelton Biddulph commissioned A.W.N. Pugin, the genius of the Gothic Revival movement, to mastermind the redecoration of the castle. The work was carried out by J.G. Crace, with whom Pugin had collaborated most famously on the new Palace of Westminster. Minor structural changes were made by local builders, but Pugin had for the most part to work within the existing spaces, concentrating on making the surfaces and the fittings look more medieval. So he repainted, rather than replaced, the Neo-classical decoration in the state rooms, and supplied neo-Gothic wallpapers, curtains, light-fittings, grates and stained glass. Even so, the expense was considerable: the first phase, completed in 1847, tost £2,650. Myddelton Biddulph was a demanding client, and Pugin became increasingly exasperated at having to supervise the complex details of the contract from far away. Despite the difficulties, Pugin continued to work on the project until his tragically early death in 1852. His son, E.W. Pugin, inherited the commission, remodelling the stables in confident High Victorian style.
The Colonel's son, Richard, who inherited the estate in 1872, continued to gothicise Chirk. He inserted a new Perpendicular-style window in the Chapel, arranged the old armour and weapons in the Cromwell Hall, and completed his father's antiquarian re-creation of the King's Bedroom. In deference to his Myddelton ancestors, he dropped the Biddulph element from his surname in 1899.
Richard Myddelton also welcomed visitors to the castle an a more regular basis. As the notice in the Cromwell Hall screens passage explains, Chirk was opened two afternoons a week throughout the summer at a charge of a shilling, the proceeds being given to charity. This was generous of the Myddeltons, as by the end of the 19th century the shrunken agricultural estate could no longer support the running of the castle, which was also burdened by rising taxation, and in 1911 they were forced to lease it out.


The Howard de Waldens

Chirk enjoyed a new lease oflife when it was let to Thomas, 8th Lord Howard de Walden (188o-1946), a shy millionaire whose wealth came from property in the West End of London. Like Pugin, Tommy Howard de Walden had fallen in love with the 14th century. He wanted to make his home in a medieval castle, and was delighted to find that Chirk had once been owned by his Arundel forebears. The castle grounds became the setting for re-creations of medieval falconry and jousting, in which he participated with gusto. The artist Augustus Johncame down to breakfast one morning to find him sitting in an armchair in full armour reading The Times. Howard de Walden was an enlightened patron of painters such as John, Lavery, J.D. Innesand Wilson Steer, who painted numerous views of the castle; and of sculptors like Rodin, to whom he sat for a bust, and Eric Gill, who carved the war memorial in Chirk village.
Howard de Walden and his wife Margherita hosted glittering house parties and musical evenings at Chirk, at which she often sang. Literary guests included Rudyard Kipling, George Bernard Shawand Hilaire Belloc, who constructed a hot-air balloon from tissue paper in the Cromwell Hall. Howard de Walden loved living in Wales, learning the language and helping to found the Welsh National Repertory Theatre Company in nearby Llangollen.
During their tenancy, the Howard de Waldens paid for extensive repairs to the castle, installing ten new bathrooms and fireplaces in both the medieval and classical styles.
They also made the derelict south range habitable. The Long Gallery was filled with Lord Howard de Walden's important collection of armour, and his Old Masters were hung in the Saloon.

Recent years

Richard Myddelton's son Robert returned to Chirk during the Second World War, living happily side-by-side with the Howard de Waldens, who finally gave up the lease in 1946.
In 1949 Chirk became the home of the next generation, Lt-Col. Ririd and Lady Margaret Myddelton, who were keen to restore the castle and ensure its Long-term future. The solution was found in 1978, when Chirk was acquired by the National Land Fund (the predecessor
of the National Heritage Memorial Fund). During the next three years the castle was the responsibility of the Welsh Office, which put in hand a major programme of much-needed repairs. In 1981 Chirk was handed over to the National Trust.


Margherita, Lady Howard de Walden describes John Lavery's painting of her family in the Saloon:
`The sun is shining in on to a Chinese rug and the enormous glass bowl of gladioli; one of the Coromandel screens shows behind the grand piano where Bronwen is playing the viola, Elizabeth the 'cello and my head is seen at the piano. A Flemish tapestry above the fireplace

looks down on Gaenor and Pip sprawled on the floor over their chess-board, with Pip's big dog beside them. Little Rosemary, in a yellow frock, leans against an armchair watching.And on the window-seat, framed by the dark red Spanish curtains, Tommy [Lord Howard de Walden] sits with Dick the bull terrier, at his feet, talking to John who is holding atennis-racket and has his back to the room.'