Plas Newydd

“Enchanting mansion and gardens, with spectacular views of Snowdonia” is the description on National Trust website and I agree with them. The country house is beautiful and the views are exquisite.

On the way to the property, we’ve stopped in Conwy, where we ate a beautiful cake and we visited The Smallest House in Great Britain, pictures here.

On arrival at Plas Newydd, I realized that this was the place where there are a lot of red squirrels. I’ve read there are red squirrels in Anglesey on the RSST’s website (Red Squirrel Survival Trust), but I completely forgot this was the property they mentioned. So we walked though the woods towards the house, I had 3.5″ heels, not a real issue for walking, but inappropriate.

We didn’t see any squirrels. The guide told us that on his visit, HRH The Prince of Wales (Patron of RSST) didn’t see any either, so we felt a little better.

This is only a small part of the renewable energy projects made by National Trust. They also installed a sea energy pump, that will cover the costs of heating the mansion.

The painting is a Van Dyck.

I couldn’t pass the opportunity to have a picture taken near the painting of Henry VIII.

The Marchioness of Anglesey’s bedroom, so cute, pink and girly and elegant at the same time. I was smitten.

There isn’t a handle from the bedroom and the door looks like the wall. It is the door for the servant’s stairs, so there wasn’t any need to put a handle from that side of the door.

The clock is 212 years old and it was stopped by the NT to protect it.

I love the window settee, I imagine myself with a cup of tea and a book, snuggled on a rainy day.

After we finished the visit of the house it started raining, so we went back inside to have a cream tea.

I was so happy that we went back, as I found a great book about the history of F1, by season, from 1950 to 2004 at the used bookshop.

The rain stopped and it was much sunnier and warm than before. We stroll though the terraced gardens.

It was a beautiful day out. We learned about the 1st Marquess of Anglesey and the Napoleonic wars, his courage and the scandal that involved him and the Duke of Wellington.
After visiting the house, I’ve read a few things about The 7th Marquess of Anglesey, who died last year, at 90. He donated a part of the estate to National Trust in 1976, but still retained a few rooms for him to live in.  The 7th Marquess was involved in different charities, including NT. The 8th Marquess lived at Plas Newydd until 1999.

In the dinning room there is the biggest painting by Rex Whistler, a very talented painter who died in WW2, at only 39. We weren’t allowed to take pictures of his paintings this year, due to copyright. But next year the copyright will expire, 70 years after the death of the author. We intend to visit the mansion again and take a lot of pictures of the painting, it’s a beautiful piece of art.