Bodrhyddan Hall (4,00 £/per person) near by Dyserth



DYSERTH

9 miles N of Denbighon the A5151

Lying in die foothills of the Clwydian Range, Dyserth boasts a 60 feet waterfall and a charming parish church with a striking stained glass east window installed around 1450. Eighty years later a colourful Jesse Tree was added.
Just to the west of the village lies Bodrhyddan Hall, the 17th century manor house of the Conwy family, who have lived on this spot since the early 1400s. Its treasures include the Charter of Rhuddlan; panels around the fireplaces in the White Drawing Room that came from the chapel of a ship of die Spanish Armada that foundered off the coast of Anglesey; Hepplewhite chairs, suits of armour and ancient weapons, and a family portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds.

The Gardens here are also of interest, the main feature being a box-edged Victorian parterre designed by William Andrews Nesfield, father of the famous William Eden Nesfield, who remodelled the house in 1875. William E had a very varied life,being a soldier and a watercolour painter before taking up garden design when he was over 40. He worked on well over 200 estates, among the most notable being the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. A much older part of the garden at Bodrhyddan is centred on a well house bearing the inscription "Inigo Jones 1612" and containing a spring, St Mary's Well, that may once have had pagan significance.




Bodrhyddan Hall

Welcome to Bodrhyddan.

Our home, situated towards. the northern end of the fertile vale of Clwyd, has grown to what it is now over many generations and through severat distinct phases of construction. lt has remained in the possession of the same family throughout its long history and party for this reason now contains a varied and interesting collection.
We hope you will enjoy your tour and be able to feel, as many have remarked, this is not a museum but still the living home of our family.

The Story of Bodrhyddan

The Home of Lord Langford and his Family

There has been a house an this site for at least seven hundred years, and for two probable reasons.

First, there is spring water nearby, which never falls in the driest summer nor freezes in the hardest winter.

Secondly, the family name is Rowley - Conwy and there have been Conwys connected with Rhuddlan Castle since its building by Edward I in the 1280s. To be able to withdraw, when military activity in the area was light, from the discomfort and lack of privacy of the castle would have been most agreeable.

The family also own Rhuddlan Castle with CADW, an agency of the National Assembly of Wales, as Guardians of the Fabric.

The origin of Bodrhyddan's name is obscure. "Bodrhythyn" was much favoured. Edward Llwyd, a Welsh diarist and man of letters, wrote of "Bod Trydhan" at the end of the seventeenth century, while old manuscripts, Rhuddlan Parish Registers, and maps contain such variances as "Potrhyddan", "Botrythan", "Botrithan" and "Bodryddan". Indeed more than these are recorded but this occasions little surprise since spelling in those days was unimportant and even the name of the family, which was usually considered more important than the name of one's house, appears variously as Coniers, Conias, Konias, Conway, Conwaye, Conwey, Coneweye, sometimes with and sometimes without a "de" before settling down to the usual Welsh spelling of Conwy. There has never been given a reliable English translation of the name of the house. Perhaps there is an etymological connection with the village of Rhuddlan: pronunciations tend to vary and it is not over-fanciful to think that "Bodrhuddlan" which may be loosely translated "Manor house of Rhuddlan" is too far fetched. It is in fact the only explanation that has been offered.

The first dwelling was probably of timber or "wattle and daub". No trace of it remains but there still exist substantial parts of its successor, a grey stone building which was built during the fifteenth century, probably by Sir Richard Conwy, described as " Lord of Prestatyn"because his mother Ellen was daughter and heiress of Sir Hugh Crevecoeur, Lord of the manor of Prestatyn. The Crevecoeur crest was the "pelican in her piety" who tears at her breast to feed her own blood to her young. The pelican or stork motif is to be seen in several places about Bodrhyddan.

Sir Richard's house would probably have been a fairly typical manor of its day, possibly part timbered and probably equipped with chimneys, which were regarded at the time as a useful and fashionable modern accessory.

Traces of this house and its immediately subsequent additions survive.

The cellar doorway in the house yard is early Tudor and there are Tudor Rose stone flags in the Gun Room, in the Stone House and at the bottom of St Mary's well bath, while the inner walls of the Great Hall and the Drawing Room above it are some four feet thick with grey stone innermost, which formed the outer walls of Sir Richard's Tudor house.

When Dame Mary Conwy (widow of Sir Henry Conwy, Kt., of whom more later) drew up her will in 1679, she referred to "a dining room and an Banqueting House", a "Parloure and Butterie Chamber" and a "lyttle Parloure". What was almost certainly her front door is now at the foot of the cellar steps: the wood on the heavy-hinged door is in harmony with the Tudor masonry and carries an iron barred
the cellar door, formerly the front door of the Tudor house.

There are other reminders of those times. A sundial bears the date 1637: on the lawn is the last surviving pillar from the chapel in the castle and in the Pleasance is St. Mary's Well, the "Ffynnon Fair" which Edward Llwyd mentioned in 1699. The octagonal well-house of dressed stone, dated 1612, surmounted by a quartering of the Conwy arms and a Pelican in her Piety, bears the name Inigo Jones.
During the Civil War William Conwy was the Master of Bodrhyddan. He did not command Rhuddlan castle, which suffered a short siege towards the end of the war. This was perhaps because in 1646, having been "sequestered for adhering to the King" he was too "weak and old" to go to London to take the Covenant and Negative Oath, required by parliament, in person.

At that time his son Henry was only sixteen years old, but he developed Royalist sympathies as he grew older and left to join Charles II abroad. He returned at his father's death and soon adapted to the political climate sufficiently well to be made Cromwell's High Sheriff of Flintshire in 1657. There can be little doubt of his true allegiances however since he was made a Baronet upon the Restoration in 1660 and married the daughter of Sir Richard Lloyd of Esclus who had been a prominent Royalist in the war. Sir Henry then began his plans for a major rebuilding at Bodrhyddan. A mortgage of £6,000 was required for the work.

Sir Henry died in 1669 and so it was left to his son John to carry out his father's ideas and thus the letters, "16 S'r J.C. Bt. 96" appear over the present garden entrance which was originally Sir John's front door. The house that John built is of mellow red brick and comprises most of the south front, with the old drive forming a grassy avenue leading down to the gateposts which carry a reminder of the Crusades, the Saracen's Head or "Blackamoor" crest of the Conwys. A typical example of William and Mary architecture, the house consisted of two storeys with the Great Hall its central feature. The present parterre has taken the place of the former carriage circle, while the main entrance was in the centre of the symmetrical front. A drawing by Moses Griffithin 1780 shows a picturesque and reasonably compact house in an attractive setting.

Sir John was the last of the Conwy Baronets, dying in 1721, four years after his only son, and so the baronetcy expired. His daughter Penelope married James Russell Stapleton, a Colonel of the 3rd Foot Guards, in 1731 and lived in Buckinghamshire. Their eldest daughter, also Penelope, married Ellis Yonge, a Flintshire landowner. This marriage produced no sons, but the eldest daughter of the union - again Penelope - married William Shipley, Dean of St Asaph probably in 1778. She died in 1789 at the age of only thirty one, having had eight children during the previous ten years.

This was before the Married Women's Property Act. Prior to this Act married women could own nothing but their wedding rings: all their property automatically belonged to their husbands an marriage. Thus the Dean became the owner of Bodrhyddan.

Towards the end of the eighteenth century, a major addition was made to the eastern end of the house, the Dean's Dining Room. We do not have a precise date for this. It does not appear in the 1780 picture but is present by 1810. From what is known of the family history it was Dean Shipley who had the work done in probably about 1790.

The Dean was the son Doctor Jonathan Shipley D.D., Bishop of St. Asaph from 1769 until his death in 1788. The Bishop was a man of strong character who stood out against the British establishment in support of the cause of American Independence. His attitude can hardly have helped his ecclesiastical career and may explain how he came to be virtually marooned for so many years as Bishop of St Asaph, the smallest city in Britain, without advancement. His son presumably built the room in order to entertain his acquaintances in a finer style that had previously been possible at Bodrhyddan. It is seldom used for its original purpose nowadays but it affords a very good home for the family portraits and the occasional lunch party.

The Dean's eldest son William inherited. One of his brothers, Conwy Shipley, led a dashing naval career in the Napoleonic wars, being awarded a ceremonial sword by the Patriotic Fund at Lloyd's before his death in action at the age of twenty six. William himgelf followed a military career and was killed in a shooting accident in 1820.

His son, also William, seems to have had a romantic attachment to Bodrhyddan's history. He revived the Conwy name and so the family became Shipley - Conwy. He made some small and rather surprising alterations to the building all of which were overwhelmed by the later remodelling. It was he who, in the fashion of the time, introduced to Bodrhyddan a lot of the wooden carving you will see, much of it continental in origin.

William's sister Charlotte married, in 1835, Captain Richard Rowley, second son of the Ist Baron Langford. They honeymooned through Europe to Egyptand visited Petra in Jordan, which had recently been rediscovered. Rather embarrassingly they left graffiti in both places that can still be seen today! Fortunately they wrote only their names and the date 1836.

Charlotte inherited Bodrhyddan after her brother died a bachelor, but outlived him by only two years. Her son, Conwy Grenville Hercules Rowley - Conwy, almost at once decided that Bodrhyddan was inadequate for his large Victorian family and himself.

With the aid of the famous Victorian architect, William Eden Nesfield, who designed Kinmel Hallan the other side of the Vale of Clwyd, C.G.H.R. - C. undertook a wide measure of reconstruction and rebuilding. Regrettably of his eight children, only three lived beyond their twenties. From the highest to the lowest in Victorian days various serious ailments took their toll and in his family's case it was diphtheria and scarlet fever.

The House originally faced south, with a fairly short front drive to the road. Now all this was changed: a new main entrance was made facing west with a mile long drive down to Rhuddlan, while the old front door was moved to its present position as the garden
entrance. The new west front, formerly the site of the old kitchens, which must have made them a long way from the Dean's dining room, was designed in the style of the Queen Anne revival and at the same time the house was enlarged to its present size.

Thus the southern face of the house shows an interesting architectural mixture. The central part of 1696 - when the original Queen Anne stylewas coming into fashion - flanked by newer work of the Queen Anne revival. Nesfield also added, at the north east corner of the house, a service wing of grey stone which nicely complements the red brick of the remainder. The design was well done, but inevitably the increased size of the house has had its attendant economic problems.

Augustus Hare, celebrated Victorian diarist and a cousin of the family, gave a somewhat forthright opinion when, in 1876, he visited the house in its new form from Kinmel where he was staying at the time. "Today being a Hunting Day most of the men breakfasted in Pink in the Hall. We drove with the Barringtons to our cousins' old house at Bodrhyddan, where young Mrs Conwy received us. The fine old house has been altered by Nesfield - `restored' they call it - but, though well done in its way, the quaint old peculiar character is gone. This generation too, has sent its predecessors into absolute oblivion." Young Mrs Conwy is reported to have banned the luckless Augustus from the house. He never came again.

The house has not remained unaltered even since then. During the 1960's and 1970's the conservatory, built in 1875, of soft wood and Blass, deteriorated rapidly. Planning permission was granted for its replacement in 1997 by an Orangery which now serves as a welcome sun and sitting room near the front door.

Bodrhyddan is a Grade I listed house and quite rightly a measure of control over listed buildings is necessary. However it is clearly a home that has evolved through several stages of development. Therefore it cannot, of its very nature, be frozen in time without the possibility of occasional modern alteration and adaption.

The Front Hall

Coming in through the front door the objects which first attract your attention are two cap-a-pieds suits of armour. The left hand one is the older and could well have been made at Augsburg in about 1485 and might have seen service at Bosworthin that year when Henry Tudor defeated Richard IIIon the field of battle and became Henry VII, a Welsh King on the English throne. The suit on the right is of a later date and its provenance is uncertain. At the feet of the two suits of armour are two naval cannons probably of the kind which were mounted on swivels and used round the ship's rail especially on the poop for use against snipers in the rigging of enemy ships. These cannon were dug up in the 1970's from a ditch near a house on the banks of the River Deewhich is now The Chain Bridge Hotel, Llangollen.

Going to the right of the standing suits of armour there is a collection of various breast plates and helmets dating from the mid sixteenth to the mid seventeenth centuries some of which show unmistakable signs of having been worn in battle and these specifically date from the Civil War of 1642 to 1651. Particularly interesting is the helmet above the table which has evidently been struck on the left temple by a pistol or musket ball.

Fortunately for the wearer, the visor was raised at the time and this probably saved his life because although the bullet penetrated the visor armour it was unable to go through the two layers of steel formed by the overlap of the helmet and the visor. It may have knocked the wearer off his horse and would have certainly have given him a headache but no worse.

The swords on the same wall include two Venetian basket hilted Schiavonas dating from about 1600 and two rapiers made by Caino, the famous Italian swordsmith of the early seventeenth century. The two wide bladed swords on the left end of the wall date from the medieval period.

On the table is a punishment collar for a prisoner, including numerous locks and some medieval pottery found in 1840 in the area of what is known as the Abbey Farm., Rhuddlan. There was no abbey there, but there was a Friary and these pots were probably locally made for use by the monks. Also on the table is Sir Robert Peel'srattle, an original of those carried by nineteenth century Teefers' or 'Bobbies', and used by policemen prior to the adoption of whistles. There is also a jailers key of uncertain date which combined a somewhat primitive pistol with a cell door key. You can also see a portion of a German shell which fell on the bridge of H.M.S. Lark (Commander R. Rowley - Conwy) during the battle of Heligoland Bight on 28th August 1914. H.M.S. Lark had earlier been the first ship of the Royal Navy to fire a shot in World War I, in the engagement and destruction of the German minelayer Konigin Luise, which sowed its deadly load in the Thames estuary on the first night of the war (August 4th - 5th) and was sunk by Royal Navy vessels the following morning.

The damascened iron and silver pots come from the middle east. The tortoiseshell veneered and mother of pearl bone inlaid travelling cabinet contains drawers lined with partridge wood and of Spanish origin, of the seventeenth century, showing the geometric patterned decoration of the Moorish influence. Fall front cabinets to contain personal belongings whilst travelling were very common at that time.

In a glass topped table between the two octagonal tables is one of the most interesting objects in the whole house, the charter of Rhuddlan, sealed with the personal seal of King Edward I. This is the original charter written on parchment and in Latin. A translation stands nearby. This charter made Rhuddlan into a free borough, and gave the town and the burgesses the rights and privileges which accorded with that status.

Behind the two octagonal tables is an overmantel dated 1601 with the initials MC and IC. The initials stand for Iohanis (John) Conwy and his wife Margaret (nee Mostyn) who died in 1627 and "was buried at night, for that she was a recusant" i.e. a Catholic. This was obviously moved to its present site from somewhere within the original Tudor house.
On one of the two tables is a small selection of pistols and two nineteenth century big game rifles. One of these, which is boxed, has a label "Manton & Co" neatly addressed "Calcutta and also at 116 Jermyn Street, St James, Wl."

On the other table are the naval and regimental swords used by the family during the last two centuries. Two of these swords, one with the royal VR on the hilt and the other with ERVII belonged to Major Geoffrey Seymour Rowley - Conwy who was killed in action at Gallipoli in 1915. The Edwardian sword is a lighter one which he bought because the Victorian one was heavy to carry for Jong hours on parade.

Another of the swords, with a Royal Artillery hilt, is inscribed 'This sword was bought in 1915 by the Honourable George Rowley K.R.R.C. who was killed in France on 17th February 1917. Later it was found in the stables of the burnt out ruins of Summerhill in County Meath and was presented by Margaret widow of the fourth Baron to Geoffrey ninth Baron Langford of Bodrhyddan who lost his Royal Artillery sword prior to escaping from Singapore on 16th February 1942.' There are also a number of other family swords including two which belonged to Admiral Rafe Rowley - Conwy and one, in a brass scabbard, to the fifth Lord Langford of the Grenadier Guards.

There are a number of shell cases on one of the window sills, each inscribed to show at which engagement or ceremonial salute it was fired. There is also an incendiary bomb, a present from Germany, which fell in the park in 1943 but which failed to ignite because it fell in wet ground.

On the wall between the windows is a sabre belonging to the Dean's son, William Shipley of the 3rd Light Dragoons, who served in the Peninsular campaign. Towards the doorway there is more seventeenth century armour, a sixteenth century crossbow decorated with ivory and some Turkish and Kurdish muskets. The three 'Brown Bess' muskets next to the front door were made by W. Ketland who supplied many local militia companies during the Napoleonic Wars. These were found in the old wash house in the 1960's and were probably issued to Bodrhyddan for use in the event of a local emergency similar to the French landing at Fishguard in 1792.

Continuing clockwise around the room are the cuirasses and plumed helmets of Conwy Grenville Hercules Rowley - Conwy who died in 1900 and who was, as a young man, an officer in the Life Guards. These frame an alcove containing the marble figure of his daughter Gwynedd who died while still a young child. His cavalry swords are above the alcove together with the cocked hats of his son, Admiral Rafe Rowley - Conwy.

On the remaining wall is a suit of middle eastern chain mail, probably of the seventeenth century, together with sabres and other eastern weapons of war, most of them Indian, while on either side

of the door into the Great hall are two lances belonging to Major William Shipley of the Bengal Lancers.
Below the chain mail is a chest, coffer or in the Italian `cassarre', which is typical of those being made in Italy and Spain in the mid 17th century.

Italy was, of course, divided into various states at that time and there was a dose affinity of styles with the Iberian peninsular. The decoration of carved leaves, flowers, mythological and animal representation in addition to the central shield are typical of renaissance decoration and the strong lobed bottom rail and heavy paw feet are also typical features. This furniture was, of course, much more ornate and expressive than English pieces of the same period and therefore it would have been thought of as very fashionable at the time for the English traveler in Italy to acquire such a piece for his home. The wood used is the native walnut so plentiful throughout Europe at that time. Walnut is a fairly soft wood but unlike chairs, which tended to have more moving and handling over the years, which has often caused damage, the cassarre is more likely to have remained in the same position for long periods, with little movement and so consequently had a greater chance of survival, provided every eagle eyed cleaner over the years keeps a watchful eye for the old enemy, woodworm, a creature who simply loves old walnut as a home in which to bore.



Egyptian Room

This room contains two mummy cases and many small objects which were brought back by Charlotte Rowley and her husband Richard, who visited the Nile Valley and Petra in Jordan while on their honeymoon in 1836.

It had always been believed that the original contents of the mummy cases had been removed and buried somewhere in the garden. Everyone had something of a surprise, therefore, when, in the summer of 1971 Dr Peter Rowley - Conwy and Dr. John Ruffle, the then Keeper of Archaeology at Birmingham City Museum and a specialist in Egyptology, discovered that one of the mummy cases still contained its original occupant. The body was in good condition and is now on view in its original case.

Dr. Ruffle has since identified it as that of a junior priest in theTemple of the God Amunat Thebes and the body was mummified during the Eighteenth Dynasty, about 1200 BC, and is therefore something over three thousand years old. The nearest translation of his name from the Egyptian hieroglyphs is Horkhebis.

An interesting footnote was added in 1978 when Dr Peter Rowley - Conwy Ph.D. visited Thebes. On one of the columns of Medinet Habuthe Mortuary Temple of Rameses IIIhe saw the following inscription:

R. Rowley
Chartotte Rowley
1836

Evidently the deplorable habit of carving one's name on ancient monuments is not new! These were Peter's great great grandparents and one wonders what prompted him to glance up at just the right moment.
On their return to Bodrhyddan Charlotte persuaded her husband to add the name Conwy, which had been revived by her brother William, to the surname of Rowley.



The Great Hall

The first item in the Great Hall to strike the eye is the tithe table which was left to Bodrhyddan by Marjorie, the last of the Shipleys of Twyford, Winchester.

Legend has it that this was the table on which William Rufus, King William II, was laid out after he was killed by a glancing arrow of one of his knights while hunting in the New Forest. History relates that the King's knights and attendants, fearful of being accused of his murder, fled the scene and the King's body was discovered by a charcoal burner who took it in his cart to Twyford Abbey where it remained with the monks overnight before being transported to Winchester Cathedral. Twyford Abbey came into the
possession of the Shipleys after the dissolution of the monasteries but before this the tithes due to the Abbey were almost certainly received at this table.

At the valuation for probate after Marjorie's death the valuers Christie's said that the table goes back at least to the fifteenth century and they were reluctant to go further back than that because of lack of data.

On either side of the doorway you have just come through are Portraits which are believed to be of William Conwy (1577 - 1654) and his wife Luce, a daughter of Thomas Mostyn, both painted by Geeraerts the Younger.

Going clockwise around the room there is a Chinese lacquer tea chest. This is reputed to be a gift from King Charles II and there may be some truth in this given the loyalty shown by Sir Henry Conwy during the interregnum, although it is more likely that the chest was made early in the following century. By the eighteenth century only the Chinese had perfected the art of using lacquer (tree gum) to build up the relief decoration and the demand for oriental furniture to accompany the substantial amounts of porcelain being shipped from China to the west greatly increased. Stands for the cabinets were more usually made on arrival but this one has a Chinese carved stand of later date.

In the fine inglenook revival fireplace are some nice brass fire dogs and hand bellows whilst above it the decor is of gilt stamped leather fruit panels repeated in the oak frieze and seat which were designed in the Victorian arts and crafts tradition. The tapestry seat covers were made by Gabriele Rowley - Conwy, Lord Langford's mother.

Beyond the fireplace we have a portraits of Phillipe Duc D'Anjou and his brother Charles Duc de Berrypainted by Francois De Troyin 1696. Beside them is a good long case clock by Pieter Klock of Amsterdam made in about 1700, the zenith of European clock making. This fine example shows the Dutch influence of the use of marquetry to decorate the case which became equally popular in England, as many Dutch artisans came to work over here after William of Orange became King. The marquetry cabinet between De Troy's paintings is also Dutch of the eighteenth century and contains an attractive collection of Meissen porcelain figures, which were so appreciated by the ladies of the time.

The card table and three legged etagere beside the clock are nineteenth century, in Louise Seize styleand have an eye catching `cubic' design of inlay.

On either side of the door leading out of the Great Hall are two Flemish oak sideboard cabinets, 19th century, incorporating older carvings and surmounted by a Cantonese enamel altar set. This rare item begs two interesting questions. How did an item of such Christian significance come to be made in the Far East? And how does it come to be in Wales?

For the answer to the first question we must look back in time to the 16th century. It was during the reign of Elizabeth Ithat theEast India Company was established and the first Englishmen set foot on the Chinese mainland to trade. At the same time the Spanish and Portuguese navies were at their boldest in terms of exploration and colonization, particularly in Central and South America but concurrently in the East Indies and the lands of the Far East, vying with England and Holland for control of important trade routes and establishments. With those Iberian ships went the Jesuits. Not only fervent in their Missionary zeal to build a strong Catholic faith wherever they went to colonize, they were also entrepreneurial, educated and enterprising.

In China they saw the benefits to be derived from the large porcelain industry which had already been established for 500 years and the enamelling on bronze and other metals that was a traditional craft. By the late 17th century the Jesuitswere ordering numerous items, in porcelain particularly, to be used in Spain and Portugal. No doubt the complete altar set and crucifix, worked by Chinese craftsmen to a high European baroque style was shipped back for pride of place in a Spanish monastery or church, where it would have remained to this day had it not been for the terrible events of Napoleon's Peninsular Campaign in the early 1800's.

Here we move to the second question. By all accounts it was looted from the French Army baggage train after the battle of Salamanca in 1812. I suppose we could call this "secondary looting" as it was taken directly from

the possession of the enemy and by consequence carries no dishonour or shame.

The atrocities committed upon the native provincial and peasant population by Napoleon's Spanish Army are well known, and they are graphically illustrated by the etchings and drawings of Spain's greatest artist living at the time, Francesco Goya. The act of pillage and looting of items of religious significance from ecclesiastical property has long been considered shameful and dishonourable. Had a soldier in Wellington's army been found guilty of such violation of the Spanish community he would have risked being summarily executed as an example. The British Peninsular Army, like the French, contained a high `rabble' element that required very firm discipline and leadership to keep it on track in the task of driving the French army out of Spain and across the Pyrenees.

Sitting now in a plain secular setting one can only imagine this set upon an altar, brightly lit by candles, the luminosity reflecting back from a reredos very often covered in layered sheets of gold or silver, when the whole set would have stood out as an object of great beauty.

In the window alcove there is a portrait of Benjamin Conwy, English School circa 1740 and also his wife Elizabeth Conwy of Soughton, near Mold. When married they lived at Efenechtyd, near Ruthin, where Benjamin was vicas There are still some Blackamoors, the Conwy family crest, on the drive gateposts of a house in Efenechtyd.

The Red Staircase & landing

Going up the stairs from the Great Hall we meet Marjorie, the last of the Shipleys of Twyford; a very remarkable person. It is said that Marjorie was the daughter of an east end of London carpenter but she had two things going for her, very good looks and great ambition with the result was tha she went on the stage shortly after the First World War. During her stage career she met Mordaunt Shipley whom she married sometime in the mid 1920's. She was always very keen on flying and when she finally agreed to marry Mordaunt, the only condition she laid down was that she should bi allowed to learn to fly. Mordaunt did better than this. Not only was she taught to fly but he bought her an aircraft and flying became a passion which continued well in to her eighties when she was still piloting her own aircraft, by then a Cessna 170.

On the wall on the right as you climb the stairs are a pair of two handed swords of the early sixteenth century. These were carried by a small proportion of the Swiss and the German "Landsknecht" mercenaries of the time. Most were pikemen but "die velorene haufe" - the forlorn hope - was a small advance guard which used halberds or swords like these to try and

cut their way into the densely formed ranks of the enemy.

Halfway up the second flight of stairs is an enormous painting by Pieter Van Bleek (1697 - 1764), which bears a tablet with the words "Sir Thomas Longueville Fourth baronetwith his first wife Maria Margaretta, daughter of Sir John Conwy of Bodrhyddan, with their niece Honora Conwy and her future husband Sir John Glynne of Hawardenand with her three daughters Maria Margaretta, Conwy and Henrietta with Conwy's future husband George Hope".

Maria Margaretta was the daughter, by his second marriage, of the Sir John Conwy, who built the central (1696) part of the house, which includes this red landing.

Curiously, George Hope has quite plainly been added to the picture at a later date and probably not by the original artist. His somewhat mischievous pose at the back of the group is quite out of character with the formal positioning of the other members, his clothes are in the style of a later era and he is even slightly out of scale, being too large. Why was he added? We really do not know for certain. However, he was apparently tutor to the three little girls, before, much later, marrying one of them and it has been suggested that he was added to the family portrait to increase the prestige of a lowly pedagogue.

To the left of the painting is the " Cock Robin window" whose stained glass images tell the tale of that unfortunate bird. The glass was put into a previously existing frame during the 1875 alterations by C.G.H. Rowley - Conwy for his children, so many of whom died young.

In a little black cabinet are a pair of gloves that belonged to Queen Anne but how they came to the house we do not know. Of the stuffed birds the most noteworthy is a bittern which for some reason was stuffed in Aberdeen although it seems doubtful that the bird could have originated from anywhere near there. In any case it is over a hundred years old.

The Drawing Room

Going through the door into the Drawing Room you will see it is dominated by the chimney pieces at either end. The small panels set into these show biblical scenes and are said to have come from the chapel of a ship of the Spanish Armada wrecked off the coast of Anglesey. Having rounded the north of Scotland this luckless vessel thought to find its way home via the Irish Sea rather than the Atlantic.

The surrounding parts of the chimney piece are of later date, one being dated to 1637. The Blackamoors Headis the crest of the Conwys and was adopted prior to the West Indian slave trade so has no connection with that! It was not uncommon in later medieval times for families to adopt such a crest if their ancestors had been on the Crusades - or at least wished to imply that they had.
The windows look out to the south, over the parterre laid out in 1875 by William Andrews Nesfield, father of the architect William Eden Nesfield.

In one of the glass topped tables by the window is a Lloyd's Patriotic Fund sword which was presented in 1805 to Captain Conwy Shipley, master and commander of H.M.S. Hippomenes, a sloop of eighteen guns, after she captured L'Egyptienne, a frigate of thirty six guns on 24th March of that year in the West Indies.

Commodore Hood's dispatch to the Admiralty, sent from Barbados on 29th March reads:-

"I have the satisfaction to send you a letter I have received from Captain Shipley of His Majesty's skop Hippomenes, giving an account of the capture of Egyptienne, French frigate of 36 guns by that sloop. The firmness and perseverance of Captain Shipley in pursuit of a
ship of such force does him, the officers and the sloop's company the highest credit".

Captain Conwy Shipley's own account was brief and modest.

"I have the honour to acquaint you with the capture of L `Ègyptienne, a french privateer, formerly a Republivan frigate,
mounting thirty six guns, twelves and nines (12 and 9 pounders), commanded by M Placiard, and having 240 men on board, on the evening of 27th (March) after an arduous chase of fifty four hours and twenty minutes..

She struck,(her colours) the moment we fairly got alongside of her. 1 feel much pleasure in saying that our officers and men behaved with admirable coolness and intrepidity........ Mr John Lloyd, Master's Mate is the only person hurt an this occasion and he only slightly. 1 have further to inform you of the recapture of the Reliance of London, taken by the above frigate"

The above extracts are taken from "His Majesties Sloop of War Diamond Rock" by Stuart and Eggleston (Robert Hale Ltd 1978)
Poor Conwy Shipley did not live long to bask in his glory. He was killed two years later in a commando style night raid on the estuary of the River Tagus in Portugal, the aim of which was to "cut out" a French Man of War. His body was washed ashore a couple of days later with his battle sword, also in the glass table, still tied to his wrist.

Hanging on the wall above is a emall picture of his famous engagement painted by his First Lieutenant.

Further to the left is the Carlton House Writing table. This is the best example of English 18th century cabinet making in the Bodrhyddan collection. lt combines both elegance and restraint, a combination of qualities so unreservedly admired in particular by
English and American collectors for over a hundred years. The skills of the English cabinet makers of this period are regarded by some as the zenith in cultured design, combining as it does the skill of the craftsman, the use of imported exotic woods and the perception of the designer. This type of desk was so named after it was first inventoried in the Prince Regent's bedroom at his newly furnished Carlton House at the beginning of the 19th century, but the design had in fact appeared earlier, in the Tate 1780's and 90's when both George Hepplewhite and Thomas Sheraton refer to it as "a newly designed writing table".

Although being out of favour during the reigns of William IVand Queen Victoria the design enjoyed a revival from the 1890's until the outbreak of the Great war and in more recent times, but this particular example is truly of the Tate 18th Century period.

On the Carlton House Writing Table is the hundredth birthday celebration book of the Tate Mrs Gabrielle Rowley - Conwy who died in 1984 aged nearly 104. The book contains congratulatory messages from the Queen, the Prince of Wales, Margaret Thatcher, who was then the Prime Minister, Lord Hailsham of St Marylebone who was then the Lord Chancellor and many others.

On the shelves beside the Carlton House table is a Derby dessert service of painted flowers on mauve and white and some very nice early Wedgwooddessert dishes decorated with wild flowers.

In and around the window alcove it can be noticed that the floorboards have been heavily pitted and dented. This is the legacy of the fashion for stiletto heels that first arose in the 1920's and has recurred periodically since then.

Along the wall opposite is an array of oriental porcelain, mostly Chinese with a couple of Japanese pieces. Much of the Chinese collection is in the style of Chien Lung, who was emperor for the latter part of the seventeenth century. However, the style was much copied in later years, so the majority of this collection is eighteenth or nineteenth century.

Of particular interest on these shelves are some pieces recovered in 1990 from the eighteenth century wreck of the Dutch ship Geldermalsen in the South China sea, which are in the centre of the shelves. Amazing though it may seem the tea traders loaded porcelain of this quality on to their ships principally as ballast, to add weight to a cargo that was so light that it would otherwise leave the ship dangerously unstable.

On the shelf to the left, between two blue vases of Kang Hsi styleis a rare and interesting coffee bowl, Chinese, but made for the export market to Persia. If you look closely you will see it is decorated with painted quotations from the Koran.

In the shelves on the other side of the door is a collection of Meissen, Dresden and Sevre with a few of the distinctive blue on white Royal Copenhagen pieces. Particularly attractive is the Meissen cabaret tea set in turquoise with figures painted in purple.

In the shelves beside the rocking horse are a collection of Derby porcelain and Staffordshire pottery figures of people and sheep from the later eighteenth and earlier part of the nineteenth century. The pieces in the window alcove are largely of the same origin, but the two gourd vases are Dresden.

The rocking horse itself dates from about 1840. By the middle of the century this design had been abandoned due to the tragic effect of the rocking bows on the toes of other children in the nursery.

In the glass topped table below the window are several family pistols. The brass "cannon barrelled" late seventeenth century pair are by I Pratt, the steel barrelled, rifled pair by T Richards of Birmingham and the remainder, including the fearsome double barrelled Irish "man stoppers" are by W & J Rigby of Dublin.

The Boudoir Stairs

Leaving the Drawing Room by the other door there is the Bodrhyddan Roundel on your left by Griffith Hughesand dated the 6th July 1639 which shows the Conwy Arms quartered for various families which had married into Bodrhyddan with a family tree which is extremely difficult to read. Next to the Roundel is an exemplification of the current Rowley - Conwy arms shown with the baronial supporters for the peerage of Langford.

Facing you as you go downstairs is a painting of a fox hound by George Stubbs, signed and dated 1788. The dog belonged to William Pitt the Elder and was left to Catherine Stapleton, a Bodrhyddan joint heiress. Catherine was a particular friend of Pitts wife Hester, with whom she carried out an extensive correspondence after his death. This is certainly one of the most important pictures in Bodrhyddan. Stubbs was the premier English painter of animals of the eighteenth century - some would say of all time - although he is, of course, better known for his paintings of horses.


The Dean`s Dining Room

Turning right then left at the bottom of the stairs you willo enter the Dean`s Dining Room. This room was built as an extension to the main house in about 1790 by William Shipley, Dean of St Asaph.

The massive oak sideboard, the dining chairs and the mahogany table are all nineteenth century. At least parts of the fire surround is eighteenth century, as is the carved Flemish buffet at the opposite end of the room from the sideboard, which is carved with biblical scenes such as Jacob's ladder and Isaac's sacrifice. On it is an early nineteenth century French Empire silver and Bronze clock in a glass dome.

However, the main features of the room are, of course, the portraits. The largest, at one end, shows Frances, Lady Stapleton, as a widow, with her two infant sons. The younger, William Russell Stapleton, is, as an adult, above and to the left, wearing his uniform as a colonel of the Guards in 1745. He married Penelope Conwy, daughter of Sir John Conwy, by his first marriage, who built the central (1696) part of the house. Their dranddaughter, also Penelope, married the Very Rev. Dean William Shipley who built this room and whose portrait, by Sir William Beechey,hangs to the left of the fireplace. His rather forbidding countenance is nicely offset by the charming little sketch of him aged 14 months that hangs beside.

The Dean's father, Jonathan Shipley, was Bishop of

St Asaph from 1769 to 1787, and his picture by Sir Joshua Reynoldscan be found to the right of the fireplace, next to his seals. Surprisingly for their eras both the Bishop and his son believed in seif government for the American Colonies and the Dean was charged with sedition after he published a pamphlet an the subject. Fortunately he was acquitted.

This also led the Bishop to correspond with and eventually meet and befriend ,Benjamin Franklin who seems to have visited Bodrhyddan at least twice, and will probably have dined in this room. The Bishop's wife, Anna Maria (nee Mordaunt and niece of the 3rd Earl of Peterborough) hangs beside the door that you entered by. She was painted by Hogarth or possibly Vanderbank about 1740 - 45, wearing a white satin dress with a blue bow.

To the Bishops' right hangs his great grandson, the heavily bearded William Shipley by Richard Buckner. He had a military career, ending with the rank of Colonel after "a crushing accident" that caused him discomfort until he died, without marrying, in 1869. It was he who revived the Conwy name and added it to his own. He may also have been responsible for introducing much of the heavily carved woodwork and furniture, so fashionable in his day.

At the end of the room is his sister Charlotte, by Sir Francis Grant, seated, wearing a dark green dress, who travelled so adventurously and returned with the Egyptian mummy. She married Richard Rowley, second son of Lord Langford of Summerhill, Co Meath - a vast mansion burned and entirely destroyed in the troubles in Ireland in 1922 - and it is through this marriage that the Langford title came to Bodrhyddan. She also assumed the Conwy name, as has previously been noted.

Their son, Conwy Grenville Hercules Rowley Conwy, who carried out the 1875 remodelling of the house can be found, with his wife Marian, in two pictures between the windows. One of their children, Admiral Rafe Rowley Conwy, who lived at Bodrhyddan until his death in 1951 is above the fireplace. Another, Geoffrey, the present Lord Langford's father is next to the Bishop at the right of the fireplace and as a child with long hair, to its left. He was killed at Gallipoli in 1915. The portrait of his widow Gabrielle, painted by Coral Nerellein 1965, is in the corner of the room by the white marble bust of the Dean.

Most of the other pictures relate to the earlier Rowleys. Between the windows hangs Clotworthy Rowley - thank goodness not all the family names last! - in his scarlet uniform as a Major of the 5th Dragoons, who died in 1781 and is painted in the style of Gainsborough. In opposite upper corners of the wall facing the windows are his sister Jane, Countess of Bective, and her husband, the first Earl of Bective, in a superbly embroidered coat. Both portraits are by Thomas Hudson 1764.

On either side of the Admiral are two anonymous portraits, one of Elizabeth Rowley, Viscountess Langford,with two Young girls - " Miss Rowley and the Hon. Miss Pakenham" - and one that is said to be the Ist Baron Langford, son of the Bectives. However, it seems more likely that he is Hercules Rowley, husband of Elizabeth, who was a Viscountess in her own right.

Finally we have, high up between the centre and right hand windows Sir John Mordaunt, K.B., brother to the Bishop's wife, painted by Allan Ramsay in 1740, and in the corner his aunt Anastasia, Countess of Peterborough, painted by Vanderbankat about the same time. Sir John was an unlucky soldier and led a disastrous expedition to La Rochelle during the Seven Years War. Anastasia however was a celebrated opera singer and a very romantic figure in her day.

Leaving the Dean's Dining room by the same door as you entered you will turn left towards the Garden Entrance.
Just before you go outside on your right you will see "Ships of War and other craft in a squall" by Peter Monamy - a splendid picture, full of action and atmosphere.

You leave the house by the garden entrance, passing through what was the front door of the 1696 house before it was moved to its present position in 1875. It previously stood where the central window of the Great Hall is now.

The Garden and its environs.

You should now walk through the parterre to return to the front of the house.

Approaching Bodrhyddan from Rhuddlan, a striking feature before entering the main drive is the New Park, a successful landscaping exercise carried out by Conwy Grenville Hercules Rowley - Conwy in 1875 when the house was reoriented so that the drive approached the house from the west. Entering the drive, the gateposts are the design ofSir Clough Williams Ellis of Portmeirionfame and the trees forming an avenue are Monterey Pines (Pinus Radiata) planted in 1928. An additional planting of Red Twigged Limes(Tilia Pla hullos) was carried out in 1957 to extend this avenue towards the house.

The inner cattle grid is flanked by a wolf and a white horse standing on brick gate pillars, each holding coats of arms. The wolf and the horse are the supporters of the Langford coat of arms with the wolf bearing the present Rowley - Conwy arms and the horse those of the family in 1639.

The whole wooded area to the left of the drive as you approach the house is known as the Grove and local legend has it that it was a centre of pagan worship in pre Christian days. The successors to the pagan oaks may be seen in the garden and in various fields where they are planted in lines leading to St Mary's Well. In very early Christian days, Pagan wells and springs were frequently "adopted" for various saints by those spreading Christianity so as to bring together the old Pagan religions and the new Christian one.

Facing the house, a glance to the right shows William Andrews Nesfield's parterre. While it was William Eden Nesfield who designed the very significant alterations to Bodrhyddan in 1875, it was his father who created the parterre. In the eighteenth century Capability Brown laid out parks and gardens covering in many cases hundreds, if not thousands of acres with great and grand vistas. In Victorian days it had become more fashionable to have colour and variety nearer the house and hence the advent of the parterre. When the old front door on the south front of the house was closed and the new one established facing west it was comparatively simple to establish a parterre on the old carriage drive and to grass down the area to the road. This formal garden is replanted every summer, currently with geraniums and ageratum: at its best, which is in late July, the result when viewed from the Drawing Room on the first floor can be spectacular.

Eastwards towards Dyserth from the parterre lies the Old Park and, at the top of it, the old brick walled kitchen garden and the Ice House. Perhaps winters were colder in the nineteenth century, when there were no refrigerators and a number of country houses had their own Ice House in which they could store ice from local lakes or ponds. The ice was put in through a hole in the roof which in turn was covered in earth and surrounded by evergreen trees to provide shade. Access to the ice was obtained by a series of more or less watertight doors at the side and bottom of the Ice House. If it had been correctly and tightly packed ice could be available until August. Nowadays its' only users are a strong colony of lesser horseshoe bats who find it a useful roost and a valuable place to hibernate due to its relatively constant temperature.

The walled kitchen garden which you can see at the top of the park and its hot houses have been long abandoned as such; a skilled gardener's wages combined with air transport have made peaches, nectarines, pomegranates and the like cheaper and more easily available in the local supermarket.

Returning to the front of the house and looking across to the other side of the main drive there is the Pleasance, part of the larger Grove. Present living memory records it as a Victorian shrubbery but old large scale estate maps show preReformation fish ponds so that a garden of sorts must have existed here centuries ago. As a result of two World Wars and the onset of double death duties, the three or four acres of the Pleasance had, by the 1970's, gone entirely wild with only one or two paths through ehest high brambles and nettles. As a result of a fortunate meeting with an official of the original British Countryside Commission in 1983, information was received about a grant available for renovating or replanning old gardens which were open to the public. This resulted in a major clearance and the creation of four ponds in what had been very marshy areas and the establishment of the present Pleasance. As always in these cases the plan went well over budget and outside the grant aided figures but the grant acted as a catalyst to get the plan started.

This restoration began in 1983 and the basics of clearing the area and making the ponds took six years, after which a wooden summer house was erected by the ponds. Unfortunately in 1999 this was found to be deteriorating and was replaced by a more permanent structure, whose design derives from the buildings at Petra in Jordan. Within this building is a plaque commemorating the Millennium and honouring the memory of Richard and Charlotte Rowley-Conwy, who visited Egypt and Petra in 1836.

Some venerable Sycamoresstand in front of the Summer House and reintroductions of colourful tree and shrub species are undertaken every autumn. Among the more notable trees are a number of giant Californian Redwoods(Sequoia Sempervirens), the forebears of which were grown from seed here at Bodrhyddan in 1952. This came about after Geoffrey Rowley - Conwy, later to inherit the title of Lord Langford from his cousin, served on the Berlin Airlift with the American Airforce at Fassberg in Germany, after which an
United States pilot friend sent him about 3,000 Redwood seeds which in total weighed half an ounce (14 g.). Of these only six germinated, two of which were given to friends but of the four larger trees standing here numerous cuttings have been made and have grown on well.

St. Mary's Well, which has already been described, marks the beginning of the Walk of Life installed by Marian Rowley-Conwy in 1875. The well is a symbol of birth and the path leads roughly northwards towards a sundial, which is a reminder that time is slipping on, and where a smaller path comes in on the right indicating marriage. At the end is a bell, representing death. For most of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries this was the Estate fire bell and hung from a gallows like bracket in the farm buildings. Bodrhyddan owns three horse drawn fire engines, the latest and largest being an eight man four horse manual pump and the earliest a circa 1780 two man one horse machine. When County Fire Brigades were set up shortly after the First World War, the Bodrhyddan Estate fire brigade became redundant and the bell was taken to Rhuddlan fire station which was on the site of the present Post Office. Here it stayed until the Tate 1940s when the advent of reliable motorised fire fighting appliances led to

centralisation in the Rhyl fire services headquarters and the bell was returned to Bodrhyddan to fulfil its final function as marking the end of the Walk of Life from St. Mary's Well.

Further away from the house, across what is known as Grove Lane, is the site of the fifteenth century fish ponds and what is known as the Dingle which is being gradually reclaimed from being bramble and nettle infested woodland and turned into a picnic area and forest walk but this is a slow job and will take some time.

All in all, the parterre and the avenue, the Pleasance and the Dingle cover about eight acres which is about as much as is maintainable. It is great fun to go jungle busting and clearing hitherto almost impassable woodland but there is always annual maintenance to follow. Maintenance is expensive and nothing like so much fun as the original clearing exercise. Nevertheless, work an improving and enlarging the environmental amenities continues so as to create a place of floral and arboreal tranquillity.

The House Yard

If you now walk up the slight gradient by St Mary's Well to the small drive and turn to your left you will find the entrance to the house yard.

On your left as you enter the yard you will see a stone horse through, inscribed "the gift of a friend to animals". This was given by Marian Rowley-Conwy, wife of CGH Rowley-Conwy to be placed by the (horse drawn) taxi rank in Rhyl, towards the end of the last century. It remained there until the 1960s when the Town Council no longer wanted it and were going to break it up. It was then returned to Bodrhyddan.

Going further into the yard you will see directly ahead of you the grey stone service wing added to the house by Nesfield in 1875. On your left are brick, arched garages built in 1969 to a design bySir Clough Williams-Ellis.

Opposite these are the steps leading down to the cellar entance with its ancient door. Please do not go down the steps - they are always very slippery!

Next to the cellar steps is a porch added to the side entance in 1972. In incorporates a door lintel from Summerhill, which was the home of the Langfords in Ireland until its destruction.



The Stable Yard

To find the stable yard you must leave the main drive about a hundred yards from the front door, where the round trimmed box bushes are and follow the path which runs alongside a holly hedge. When you reach the modern livestock building turn to your left and the stable yard is directly in front of you.

As you walk towards it you will find an your left a small folly which Lord Langford had erected in 1959 to incorporate the remains of a monument that had been put up in Rhyl in 1862 to commemorate the coming of age of his grandfather. The design for this small piece was drawn an the back of an envelope over early evening drinks by no less a partnership than Sir Clough Williams Ellis and Frank Lloyd - Wright, who was staying with Sir Clough at the time!

The Stable Yard is interesting for its Clock Tower with chime of bells and its pleasant grey stone arches and coach houses. Except for the dock tower - added later as the inscription shows - it was also designed by Nesfield.

If you walk through the arch under the Clock Tower you will find yourself once more an the lawns to the south side of the house where your tour ends.

We hope you have enjoyed your visit to our family home and found it interesting. Much of our nations heritage is held within the stately homes of Britain and it our pleasure and our privilege to be guardians of our own small part of it.

Miles on this day: 49

nice and warm, 19°C



because of an operation of my mother we had to finish the vacation prematurely