The rooms are enriched with some good paintings; and in the saloon are some finely executed portraits of the family. In this room there is a cabinet of most exquisite workmanship. The views from the different windows are inexpressibly beautiful, and are said to embrace a prospect extending into seventeen counties.
In the civil wars this Castle was besieged by Cromwell’s adherents, and one of its sides, with three of its towers, overthrown. It is mentioned as a prodigious exertion of labour, and in which no cost was spared, that the wing was rebuilt in one year, at the expense of eighty thousand pounds; which I think strengthens my idea of the present Castle being only an enlargement and repair of the more ancient Castell Crogen.
About a mile and a half from the Castle stands the pleasant little village of
CHIRK.
It is an example of simple neatness and good taste. The cottages are built in the Swiss style, with singular rustic elegance, and have the appearance of comfort and quiet. The inhabitants are mainly indebted for the beauty of their rustic cottages to the Countess Dungannon of Brynkinallt, and for the uniformity and useful convenience of water in every house, which is conveyed by leaden pipes, to the exertions and influence of Mrs. Myddelton Biddulph, the owner of the Castle, and the elder branch of the much-respected family of the Myddeltons. She is Lady of the Manor of Chirk, and has built and endowed a school for the education of the village children. Her exertions to promote the comfort and interest of her tenantry are worthy imitation.
Near the church, and now enclosed in a garden, stands an artificial mount, which Mr. Pennant conjectures to be coeval with Offa’s Dyke. [17] A similar one stood on the opposite side, where now the road runs. These mounts were probably Saxon stations, and curbs to the Welch, to prevent them from violating the line of demarcation which Offa had formed.
The church is a capacious old structure, dedicated to St. Mary, and was formerly an impropriation belonging to the Abbey of Valle Crucis. It has a tower steeple, containing six bells. All the east side of the church wall within is nearly covered with marble monuments of the Chirk Castle family. A bust of Sir Thomas Myddelton, and another of his Lady, are well executed. There are also many other remarkable memento mori’s within the church, well worth the attention of those who love to muse on
“Names once famed, now dubious or forgot,
And buried midst the wreck of things which were.”
I believe there are not standing within the same compass of ground in the kingdom of Great Britain, three mansions so eminently deserving admiration for magnificence, grandeur, and beauty, as Wynnstay, Chirk Castle, and Brynkinallt; the latter of which I shall now proceed to describe.