On the Sunday before Christmas, the day before Christmas Eve we had an excursion to Chirk Castle with one of Mr C’s friends. Before we set off on our excursion we briefly called in on someone else to exchange presents in time for Christmas.
Chirk Castle had a fun theme for their Christmas display “Christmas of Make-Believe”. The display took us in the footsteps of the six children of Lord Howard de Walden in the 1920s. The children grew up in their very own fairy tale castle:
John, Bronwen, Elisabeth, Priscilla, Gaenor and little sister Rosemary grew up playing make-believe, putting on Christmas pantomimes, and playing dress-up in a castle full of imaginary dragons and knights, princesses, and stories.
From 1923 to 1931 Lord Howard de Walden wrote six pantomimes, based on popular tales, for his children and their friends to perform at Chirk Castle.
The Chirk Castle Christmas display was inspired by the pantomimes and photographs of them being performed.
The weather was inclement so we chose not to venture into the gardens to follow the fairy-tale…
This left us with enough time to visit the Christmas display at Powis Castle. The the theme at Powis was “Portrait of Christmas”. Giant gilt frames had been erected to frame Christmas scenes revealing how the Herbert family spent their Christmas.
After our lovely day out we arrived home to find an unwelcome surprise on our doorstep, but that is a story for another day…
*Clicking on the collage photos leads to links where the individual photos can be viewed full size
