The tower to the rear of this picture is The Adam’s Tower, which is the least altered of all Chirk’s medieval towers. The ground floor was the guard room, the first floor was where the Myddelton family and estate papers were stored and the second floor contains the bedroom that was used by the first Thomas Myddelton after he had handed the castle over to his son in 1612.
The interiors give a strong sense of how it would have been in the Middle Ages, although there were then narrow slits rather than mullioned windows, and the bare stone walls would have been softened by tapestries and furniture. It may have been occupied by the constable of Chirk, who looked after the castle on behalf of its absentee owner. *
Below all of these rooms is the dungeon. I took one look at the staircase and thought that is not for me to explore, so I chose to sit on a bench and await the return of the intrepid explorers. I was approached by a knight in shining chain-mail and asked if ‘Milady was alright’!!!
*Information from the National Trust Guidebook.
Tags: Chirk castle, History, Knight, National Trust
Dotted around the garden were several bronze nymphs that had been created by Andrea Carlo Lucchesi. The one pictured here is rather reminiscent of Eve because there was a snake beneath her foot.
There is also a very prominent statue of Hercules (by Van Nost) set before the backdrop of the castle. You can’t see the castle in my photo, but you know me 
I just had to take the photo from an alternative angle! The plaque nearby gives some detail of the statue:
This lead statue of Hercules was commissioned in the 1720’s by Robert Myddelton, and stood outside the main entrance to the Castle with a companion figure of Mars. In June 1770 it was removed to an outlying wood in the park, whence it was rescued in 1983 by means of an R.A.F. helicopter. The severely damaged statue, has been restored by the National Trust. Inscribed in Latin on the plinth is a heroic couplet recording the statue’s flight and eventual repose.
Tags: Chirk castle, Eve, Hercules, National Trust, Statue
The bluebells are a little late in flowering this year, so I am not able to present you with a very blue carpet of colour from my recent visit. But here as promised are the bluebells from my visit to Chirk Castle.
Tags: Bluebells, Chirk castle, Daffodills, Flowers, National Trust
The Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) has won it’s legal challenge against government plans to cut civil service redundancy payments:
Following a two-day judicial review hearing in the High Court in April, Mr Justice Sales ruled today (10 May) that the previous government acted unlawfully when it introduced, without PCS’s agreement, a new redundancy scheme reducing the rights staff had accrued over time.
In what is a dramatic win for the union’s 270,000 public sector members, the judgement quashes a revised scheme that the government had sought to impose from 1 April. It means the next government, when it is established, must reopen negotiations with the union if it is to agree a new arrangement that protects existing members’ rights.
The union has always maintained the changes to the civil service compensation scheme, which governs payments in the event of redundancy and early retirement, would have made it easier and cheaper to cut tens of thousands of civil service jobs and privatise more of our public services. It has also argued consistently that the government had no authority to act independently.
When PCS members took three days of strike action in March, including on budget day, Gus O’Donnell described it as “misguided” and Tessa Jowell, then the civil service minister said the “time for talking is over”.
Despite widespread anger among the government’s workforce, and opposition from 176 MPs including 121 Labour backbenchers, changes aimed at saving £500 million over three years were forced through.
Tags: Civil Service, CSCS, PCS, Trade Union
If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change.
The Buddha
PS: For those of you who have been waiting for the bluebells, this is the first glimpse of them.
Tags: Bluebells, Cherie's Place Thought, Chirk castle, Flowers, Magnolia, National Trust
Moving away from the castle and into the gardens there was a lovely display of spring flowers. I did think of Uncle Bernard as I took these, although there aren’t 10,000 in this border.
Tags: Chirk castle, Flowers, Garden, National Trust
It is now time to go and find those bluebells that I mentioned. To do that we have to first walk through the formal garden which consists of topiary yews and hedges. These were planted by Richard Myddelton Biddulph in the late 19th century in order to give shelter to the plants that were growing by the castle walls. I can see why it is very open around the castle and on the day I visited there was a chill wind.
Chirk has a full-time garden staff of three, supported by a small band of volunteers. Pruning the yew hedges takes two of them from mid-August until the end of October, and produces two tons of clippings.
The guidebook goes on to say:
In 1653 the second Sir Thomas Myddelton laid out a garden to the east of the castle in the formal style favoured by the French King. Sir Thomas may have been quietly making a political point, as the French were then harbouring the exiled Charles II, to whom he had recently transferred his allegiance. He certainly saw it as a way of providing work for his poorer tenants.
Sir Thomas Myddelton II on his mid-17th-century garden:
‘When first, I did begin, to make
This Garden, I did undertake,
A worke, I knew not when begunn,
What it would cost, ere it was donn,
… But I repent not, for ye poore,
… Doe there finde worke; had none before.
I found some worke for every trade,
Some walles did make, some Arbours made,
Some mowed ye Allys; some I putt,
To preuine ye vines, and Hedges cutt,
… And some poore weomen, that had neede,
…I kept, & payd them, for to weede.
Tags: Chirk castle, Flowers, History, National Trust, Topiary
