Penrhyn Castle's temporary treasures

Wales is famous for its numerous splendid castles, many of them dating from the reign of King Edward I in the 13^th century. However, although Penrhyn Castle near Bangor in North Wales may look as if it is a remarkably well-preserved example of such a castle, it is far from it. It was built in 1827-40 by a man whose family fortune derived from slate quarrying, and it has been described as “a monstrously vulgar neo-Norman pile”.

During World War II Penrhyn Castle was given a particularly important role to play – not as part of the defence of the realm but as a storehouse for some of the most valuable paintings in London’s National Gallery. It was decided in 1940 that leaving them in London, then subject to aerial bombardment from Germany’s Luftwaffe, was too great a risk, and Penrhyn Castle looked to be a much safer place for some the world’s greatest artistic masterpieces to be stored.

It was not a case of the National Gallery moving to North Wales, because the paintings were not on display but simply stored in the castle, many of them stacked against the walls in the Great Dining Room.

This arrangement would have been fine had it not been that the then owner of the castle, the elderly 4^th Baron Penrhyn, was not the most trustworthy guardian of treasures such as “The Rokeby Venus” by Velasquez or “The Hay Wain” by John Constable. For one thing, he had a tendency to get very drunk and stumble around the paintings, thus risking the possibility that he might thrust a boot through Van Eyck’s “The Arnolfini Marriage” or some other priceless masterpiece.

He then came up with the idea of opening a girl’s boarding school at the castle, which alarmed the trustees of the National Gallery even more as they envisaged a load of unruly schoolgirls being let loose in the Great Dining Room.

Lord Penrhyn agreed to drop the plan in return for charging annual rent for the paintings of £250. 

The question of the safety of the artworks eventually reached the ears of Winston Churchill, who urged the National Gallery to find another home for them. A place that was safe both from German bombs and a highly unstable aristocrat was found in caves at Manod, near Mount Snowdon, where they saw out the rest of the War until their return to London.

When the 4^th Baron died in 1951 the castle became the property of the National Trust in lieu of death duties.

© John Welford