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Date: 22 December 2023
Location: Penrhyn Castle 53.2256341,-4.094865
Christmas at Penrhyn Castle
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Penrhyn Castle
Penrhyn Castle
Date
4 August 2018
Location
Penrhyn Castle, Llandegai, Bangor
SH 60219 71962; 53.22624°N, 4.09534°W
Information
Harrison’s Garden – Penrhyn Castle
Harrison’s Garden, Penrhyn Castle
Date
4 August 2018
Location
Penrhyn Castle, Llandegai, Bangor
SH 60219 71962; 53.22624°N, 4.09534°W
Information
Harrison’s Garden by Bristol-based installation artist Luke Jerram (b 1974) is an “imagined landscape and garden of clocks”. The ensemble of over 2,000 clocks, many of which were donated by the public, is currently (16 June – 4 November 2018) on display on the derelict third floor of Penrhyn Castle‘s keep as part of its tour of National Trust properties.
The inspiration for the installation was the clockmaker John Harrison (1693 – 1776) who spent much of his life developing a series of marine chronometers in the pursuit of the Longitude Prize. Although the prize was ultimately never awarded, Harrison’s contributions led to major improvements in safety at sea. His timepieces provided a reliable means of keeping a reference time to which the local time, as determined by astronomical observations, could be compared in order to establish a vessel’s position east or west of the Greenwich meridian.
Further Reading
Slate or State, Penrhyn Castle
Slate or State in the Grand Hall, Penrhyn Castle
Date
2 July 2017
Location
Penrhyn Castle, Llandegai, Bangor
SH 60219 71962; 53.22624°N, 4.09534°W
Information
The installation, entitled Slate or State, is on display in the Grand Hall of Penrhyn Castle from 1 July until 5 November 2017.
“This sculpture was developed as part of a year-long residency by artists Zoe Walker and Neil Bromwich. It is a symbolic object; its form is drawn from Victorian paintings and sketches of Penrhyn Quarry, the quarry once owned by Lord Penrhyn.
“The choice of material for the sculpture draws inspiration from the history of protest, and large-scale inflatables that since the 1920s have taken to the streets in collective actions that have called for a fairer society.
“Walker and Bromwich are known internationally for their large-scale participatory events and exhibitions that invite audiences to imagine better worlds. Their residency at Penrhyn Castle was the final act of a three-year collaboration between Arts Council Wales and the National Trust, and their brief was to “interrogate the castle’s controversial history, the stories surrounding it and its relationship with local communities”.
“The focus of the work is the Great Strike of 1900-03, a bid by the men of Penrhyn Quarry to improve their working conditions.
“Walker and Bromwich have worked with individuals, schools and community groups in the quarry town of Bethesda to develop this sculptural work. This sculpture was the focal point of a symbolic event that paid tribute to the local community, which staged the longest strike in British industrial history.
“On 1 July 2017 the Penrhyn Choir processed this sculpture from Bethesda into the Grand Hall. During this performance the original demands of the Great Strike, combined with demands of today, were sung by the choir: colliding in time two points in history where working conditions have been at the forefront of social change.”
– Sara Roberts, Curator
Further Reading
Penrhyn Castle;
Great Strike;
Penrhyn Quarry;
More posts in the Penrhyn Castle Series
Penrhyn Castle
Penrhyn Castle
Date
28 December 2016
Location
Llandegai, Bangor
SH 60219 71962; 53.22624°N, 4.09534°W
Information
2016 Retrospective
Pontio, January 2016
Penrhyn Castle
Penrhyn Castle
Date
28 March 2016
Location
Llandegai, Bangor
SH 60219 71962; 53.22624°N, 4.09534°W
Information
Penrhyn Castle
Penrhyn Castle
Date
27 February 2016
Location
Llandegai, Bangor
SH 60219 71962; 53.22624°N, 4.09534°W
Information
Penrhyn Castle Railway Museum
Charles, built in Leeds by Hunslet in 1882. This locomotive was in service until 1956, operating on the Penrhyn Railway hauling empty slate wagons back up from Port Penrhyn to Penrhyn Quarry.
| Date | 16 May 2015 | ||
| Location | Penrhyn Castle, Bangor | SH 60286 71950; 53.22615°N, 4.09433°W | |
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Further Reading
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Now and then IV: Tanrhiw Road, Tregarth
Tanrhiw Road, Tregarth
| Date | 21 September 2014 | ||
| Location | Tregarth | SH 60380 68039; 53.19104°N, 4.09121°W | |
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During the Great Strike of 1900-1903 at his slate quarry in Bethesda, the 2nd Baron Penrhyn built a row of houses in the nearby village of Tregarth as accommodation for strike-breaking quarrymen. Locally known as Stryd y Gynffon (Traitors’ Row), Tanrhiw Road was laid out next to the railway station on the Bethesda branch of the London and North Western Railway (LNWR), which had opened in 1884. Passenger traffic on this branch line ceased in 1951 and the track was completely closed in 1963, with the station being demolished in the 1980s. A community centre and recreation ground now occupy the site of the former railway and station.
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Penrhyn Castle
Wolf-head bronze lamp standards, Great Hall
| Date | 18 May 2014 | ||
| Location | Llandegai, Bangor | SH 60219 71962; 53.22624°N, 4.09534°W | |
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There has been a mansion on the site of Penrhyn Castle since the 14th century. The original medieval fortified manor house was rebuilt as a Gothic mansion around 1782 by Samuel Wyatt for Richard Pennant (1737 – 1808), 1st Baron Penrhyn of Louth, who amassed his fortune from Caribbean sugar interests and the slate quarry in Bethesda. The estate was inherited by Pennant’s second cousin George Hay Dawkins-Pennant (1763 – 1840), who again had the house rebuilt, this time as a lavishly vast mock Norman castle. The main phase of construction took place from 1820 to 1837 under the direction of architect Thomas Hopper. Although most of Wyatt’s structure was demolished to make way for the enormous fantasy castle, its great hall was integrated into the new mansion’s drawing room. The Grade I listed castle and its grounds passed into the hands of the National Trust in 1951. Further Reading Penrhyn Castle, Bangor
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De Winton locomotive ‘Watkin’
De Winton vertical-boilered locomotive 'Watkin'
| Date | 22 April 2012 | ||
| Location | Penrhyn Castle Industrial Railway Museum | SH 60277 71968; 53.22631°N, 4.09447°W | |
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The 1893 vertical-boilered De Winton ‘Watkin’ is on display in the Industrial Railway Museum at Penrhyn Castle. The remains of her older sister ‘Penmaen’ are still in situ braving the elements at Penmaenmawr Granite Quarries, where they both worked. Penmaen was built in 1878 and was last used around 1944.
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Fire Queen, Penrhyn Castle Railway Museum
Fire Queen
| Date | 5 September 2010 | ||
| Location | Penrhyn Castle | SH 60275 71967; 53.22630°N, 4.09451°W | |
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Further Information |
Dinorwig Quarry’s Padarn Railway started operating in March 1843 with horse-drawn wagons transporting slate from Gilfach Ddu (now the site of the National Slate Museum) to Penscoins. An incline then took the slate from the terminus at Penscoins down to the quay at Felinheli. In 1848 two steam locomotives of the same design, Jenny Lind and Fire Queen were purchased from Kent marine engineers A Horlock & Co. for a total of £2,397. When slate production was it its peak, it was decided that more powerful locomotives were required. Jenny Lind was scrapped in 1882 and in 1886 Fire Queen was taken out of service and stored in a shed at Gilfach Ddu. National Slate Museum
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