History of Penrhyn Castle and Garden

The Pennant family

The Pennant family had owned Jamaican sugar plantations since the middle of the seventeenth century. By the 1730s, they had moved back to England, becoming established as merchants in Liverpool and London, while still benefitting as absentee landlords from the profits of their Jamaican estates – and the hundreds of enslaved African people working for them.

First Baron Penrhyn

Richard Pennant (1737–1808), MP for Liverpool, and the first Baron Penrhyn, established Penrhyn Castle as the family seat. He campaigned against the abolition of slavery and invested the Jamaican profits in his Caernarfonshire agricultural estates and the Penrhyn Slate Quarry. He built Port Penrhyn, as well as roads, railways, schools, hotels, workers’ houses, churches and farms.

George Hay Dawkins Pennant

When Richard died the estate passed to his cousin, George Hay Dawkins Pennant (1764–1840). As a Member of Parliament, for Newark in Nottinghamshire and New Romney in Kent, he consistently opposed the emancipation of enslaved people within the British Empire and when slavery was finally abolished, Dawkins Pennant received £14,683 compensation for 764 enslaved people on his Jamaican estates: Pennant’s, Denbigh, Cote’s and Kupuis.

Architecture

The castle was built by the famous architect Thomas Hopper. Known for his ability to turn his hand to almost any architectural style, Hopper opted for a neo-Norman design – tried elsewhere at Gosford, County Armagh, but perfected at Penrhyn.

Fantastical interiors

Hopper's hands-on approach also meant he oversaw the designing and making of furniture, carpets and decorative objects for the castle, all in the same extravagant and playful neo-Norman style. Featuring fantastical beasts, faces and patterns, the furnishings drew on the skills of local craftsmen, with furniture created in oak, ebony, marble and even in slate from Penrhyn quarry.

First Lord Penrhyn of Llandegai

In 1840, with the castle finished, George Hay Dawkins Pennant died. His daughter, Juliana, inherited Penrhyn, and her husband, Edward Gordon Douglas, adopted the name Pennant and later became the 1st Lord Penrhyn of Llandegai.

Wealth generated on plantations

A few powerful and wealthy landowners such as Lord Penrhyn developed small local quarries into a global industry. In some cases, this wealth was generated on sugar plantations worked by enslaved African people in the Caribbean.

As the Industrial Revolution gathered pace, propelled by the profits of enslavement and colonialism, demand for slate surged. Cities around the world grew and slate from the quarries in Gwynedd was widely used to roof workers’ homes, public buildings, places of worship and factories across the world.

The Gallery of North Wales

Before he died, George Hay Dawkins Pennant expressly desired that a good collection of paintings be made at Penrhyn and charged his son-in-law (Edward, the new Lord Penrhyn) with the task.

Art collection

Edward amassed an outstanding collection of Dutch, Venetian and Spanish paintings with the help of Belgian art advisor, C.J. Nieuwenhuys. Great names included Canaletto, Rembrandt, Wouwermans, Ruijsdael, Belotto and Palma Vecchio. Many of these pictures can still be seen in the Castle and the collection gave Penrhyn its reputation of being ‘the Gallery of North Wales’ at that time.