A recent trip took us back to North Wales to witness one of the most remarkable preservation stories of our time: the ongoing revival of Gwrych Castle.
Rapirs underway at Gwich Castle in summer 2026
From a Childhood Dream to a Four and a Half Million Pound Reality
The story of Gwrych Castle is deeply tied to the extraordinary vision of Dr. Mark Baker. As an eleven-year-old boy, he passed the neglected, roofless ruins and resolved that they should not be lost. What began as a childhood campaign has matured into a massive four and a half million pound restoration scheme.
Our visit began with a wonderful dinner hosted by the castle trustees.
The evening provided an excellent opportunity to speak with a group of remarkable fellow guests, all sharing ideas on heritage preservation and the future of historic landscapes.
The increible restoration work at Gwich Castle
The following day, we were fortunate to secure a tour of the building site itself, stepping past the safety barriers complete with hard hats and high-vis jackets. Witnessing the scale of the engineering firsthand is breathtaking. This monumental effort is finally granting the castle replacement roofs, secure floors, and completely renewed interiors, reversing decades of severe decay and weather damage.
Royal Ambitions and a Close Escape
The castle has passed through many chapters across its history.
In the early twentieth century, it came incredibly close to achieving a very different status when it nearly became a royal residence. During the Second World War, the government considered the estate as a potential safe haven for the royal family should London need to be evacuated. While those plans ultimately changed, the sheer scale and grandeur of the site show why it was deemed fit for a king.
From Wartime Refuge to Global Spotlight
Decades after it missed out on royal occupancy, the castle captured the global spotlight in a highly unexpected way. In 2020 and 2021, the estate became the official home for the hit British television series I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here!. Due to global travel restrictions, the show swapped its usual Australian jungle for the chilly, atmospheric ruins of North Wales. Millions of viewers tuned in nightly to see celebrities face trials within the historic walls.
Props from hit British television series I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here!.
This high-profile production not only brought immense international attention to the estate but also provided a vital financial boost that helped propel the current restoration efforts forward.
A Walk on the Beach and the Collapse of a King
After leaving the castle gates, we walked down to the nearby coastline.
This stretch of beach holds a heavy historical significance. It is the location where King Richard II came ashore after his disastrous military campaign in Ireland.
His arrival on these sands marked the definitive moment where his reign began to fall into a spiraling collapse.
Long before it marked the landing of Richard II, Gwrych Castle beach was the backdrop to the fierce Battle of Coleshill in 1157, where Welsh forces famously ambushed King Henry II.
Gwrych Castle beach: the historic spot where Richard II landed, later immortalized by Shakespeare with achingly beautiful, yet deeply sorrowful lines.
It brings to mind the famous lines from Shakespeare’s play, where the defeated king despairs:
No matter where; of comfort no man speak:
Let’s talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;
Make dust our paper and with rainy eyes
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth,
Let’s choose executors and talk of wills:
And yet not so, for what can we bequeath
Save our deposed bodies to the ground?
Our lands, our lives and all are Bolingbroke’s,
And nothing can we call our own but death
And that small model of the barren earth
Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.
For God’s sake, let us sit upon the ground
And tell sad stories of the death of kings;
How some have been deposed; some slain in war,
Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed;
Some poison’d by their wives: some sleeping kill’d;
All murder’d: for within the hollow crown
That rounds the mortal temples of a king
Keeps Death his court and there the antic sits,
Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp,
Allowing him a breath, a little scene,
To monarchize, be fear’d and kill with looks,
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
As if this flesh which walls about our life,
Were brass impregnable, and humor’d thus
Comes at the last and with a little pin
Bores through his castle wall, and farewell king!
Cover your heads and mock not flesh and blood
With solemn reverence: throw away respect,
Tradition, form and ceremonious duty,
For you have but mistook me all this while:
I live with bread like you, feel want,
Taste grief, need friends: subjected thus,
How can you say to me, I am a king?
The area holds the grip of this profound moment of literary bathos—the sudden transition from royal majesty to utter ruin. The beach a quiet reminder of the dramatic political shifts that occurred right here, alongside many other significant historical moments embedded in this coastline.
Our warmest thanks go to the trustees for their hospitality and for sharing their progress on this triumphant project.
