Saturday, September 3, 2016

Chirk Castle and Its Sculptures

Chirk castle was built in 1295 by Roger Mortimer de Chirk, uncle of Roger Mortimer, 1st Earl of March as part of King Edward I's chain of fortresses across the north of Wales. It guards the entrance to the Ceiriog Valley. In the entrance, there was a display of ten 'identical' green bottles with flowers from the estate. In infrared you can see there were two types with different glass properties (on closer inspection they were a different make as slightly smaller).  





In the grounds are four bronze nymphs by Andrea Carlo Lucchesi, (1860 – 1924) an Anglo-Italian sculptor born in London. The statues were installed in the gardens by Lord and Lady Howard de Walden, who leased the castle from the Myddelton family from 1911 to 1946. Lucchesi was an exponent of the late 19th-century British New Sculpture movement, a school based on naturalism and symbolism. Three of the statues are in the open and easy to admire and photograph while the fourth is hidden in foliage by the pond.




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