Politics at Penrhyn
Penrhyn Castle and the place of politicised interpretation in the National Trust
Penrhyn Castle is an imposing Victorian country house built in a dramatic neo-Norman style
A young black visitor finds the National Trust’s attempts to do race politics grating
In recent years the National Trust has increasingly incorporated exhibitions addressing slavery, colonialism, and social justice into its properties. Penrhyn Castle in Wales is a good case study in how the National Trust mediates the relationship between heritage, history, and politics. While these interventions highlight important historical truths, they also raise questions about whether the National Trust is departing from its founding principles as a neutral conservationist body. I visited in August 2025 to see for myself whether the National Trust’s growing tendency to frame heritage through a political lens risks undermining its role as a space of quiet reflection and shared cultural preservation.
Bangor is a tiny yet striking town located in the North of Wales. In August 2025, I had the privilege of being able to visit. With its immense beauty, extensive history, and culture, it provides for a perfect trip away. Whether it is the winding roads whose twists, turns, and steep hills feel almost ethereal, or the bright blue backdrop of glistening water against the towering green mountains — mountains that look unclimbable, yet whisper of secrets and adventure — Bangor is certainly one for the books. When in Bangor and looking towards the port, one could be forgiven for thinking they were staring at a giant portrait of perfection. The stillness and beauty seem too good to be true, too perfect to be real, as though nature itself had become art.
A short drive from Bangor train station brought me to Penrhyn Castle, nestled among fields — some dotted with cows and sheep — and encircled by mountains. The approach to the castle is almost as striking as the building itself: the sheer scale of the countryside and the towering greenery engulf visitors with awe before they even set foot inside the property. After being greeted by this view, visitors then see the view of the fantasy-like castle unfold with its grandeur and almost theatrical presence.
The castle is breathtaking. Poised deliberately to impress, the gigantic Norman-inspired structure was constructed by architect Thomas Hopper for George Hay Dawkins-Pennant between 1820 and 1832. It was built as a token of the family’s immense wealth, much of which had been amassed from the Pennants’ involvement in slavery and sugar plantations in Jamaica, as well as investments in Richard Pennant’s agricultural estates in North Wales during the 18th century. The grandeur of Penrhyn cannot be separated from this history of exploitation and profit.
On entering the castle, visitors walk through a short corridor that opens into the Grand Hall. The first impression is one of overwhelming opulence. The furniture is nothing short of spectacular, with its Neo-Norman designs, sharp curvature, and vivid colours. The ceilings are impossibly high, decorated with intricate curvature art designs. Portraits of members of the Pennant family adorn the walls, gazing down with solemn grandeur, while unique astrological stained-glass windows filter coloured light into the vast hall. The house was designed to dazzle and intimidate, to impress visitors with the Pennant family’s wealth and sophistication.
The massive neo-Norman hall marred by incongruous displays
Yet, as I made my way into the castle, I was struck by a sense of dissonance. Alongside the historic splendour, I encountered an exhibition that countered the ambiance in the room. Though the exhibition displayed insightful art and accompanying information about relevant history, the exhibition was certainly there as a political statement, something that isn’t new to the Trust.
In addition, there were poems printed on the sides of the compartments in which the art was displayed, written as artistic responses to artworks created by local community groups.
This was not an exhibition designed to blend seamlessly into the house, but rather one that sat deliberately against it, both physically and ideologically. It felt like an exhibition ‘against the castle’, a direct challenge to its history and the family who had lived there.
I was reminded of the criticism that loyal supporters of the National Trust have levelled in recent years: that the National Trust has entered into politics and virtue signalling, bending the knee to fashionable cultural currents. Since the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, the National Trust has made a concerted effort to highlight the connections to colonialism and slavery of its properties. Some have welcomed this as long overdue; others see it as a betrayal of the Trust’s founding ethos.
As I walked around Penrhyn Castle, I found it impossible to ignore the contrast between the building’s timeless grandeur and the exhibition’s modern, politicised interventions. My own response was conflicted. As a person of colour, I understand the importance of acknowledging the Pennants’ involvement in Caribbean slave plantations, and yet I also felt uneasy at how the National Trust seemed to have turned the exhibition into a political performance. This raised for me a fundamental question: should the National Trust, with its over 5 million members — more than any political party in the UK — be dabbling in political matters at all?
To explore this question, I will first look at what the National Trust was founded to do, before returning to the exhibition and accompanying poetry at Penrhyn Castle.
The National Trust was founded in 1895 by Octavia Hill, Robert Hunter, and Hardwicke Rawnsley to conserve Britain’s most beautiful and historic estates, gardens, and buildings. The organisation’s original mission was not political, but conservationist. Its aim was to protect natural beauty, historical estates, and cultural treasures for the enjoyment of the public.
Octavia Hill expressed this vision clearly when she wrote:
“We all want quiet. We all want beauty. We all need space. Unless we have it, we cannot reach that sense of quiet in which whispers of better things come to us gently.”
This simple yet profound statement encapsulates the essence of the National Trust. Its purpose was to create havens of quiet and beauty, free from the noise of everyday life and, crucially, free from the polarising world of politics.
The quiet space free from passing ideological fashions offered by the National Trust over the decades has allowed it to amass over 5 million members. Members have trusted the charity to provide spaces of calm, reflection, and beauty, untouched by the turbulence of political disputes.
Yet as I walked through Penrhyn Castle, I could not shake the sense that the National Trust was falling short of these principles. Instead of preserving quietness and beauty, it was inviting the noise of popular culture, global politics, and ideological movements into its properties.
Penrhyn Castle has become renowned in recent years for hosting exhibitions that many consider radical and politically partisan. Between 2019 and 2022, the castle hosted the ‘What a World’ exhibition, which sought to explore the links between its art and artefacts and the transatlantic slave trade.
The National Trust explained:
‘It’s important to talk about these objects because it’s everybody’s history. It is dark, unpleasant, and brutal. Take the Bird Dome, they have taken something beautiful and treated it as if it were not living, as if it was property. This castle is beautiful, these objects are beautiful, but they come from cruelty, some of them come from cruelty to enslaved African people.’ (From the ‘Everyone Welcome’ report on diversity of 2021)
The ‘What a World’ exhibition drew attention to the dome ‘trapping’ the African birds and to the box containing ‘Jamaica documents’
This statement exemplifies the Trust’s new approach. Rather than presenting objects in their historical and aesthetic context, the emphasis is on moral critique.
When I saw the Bird Dome myself, I was intrigued by its beauty and craftsmanship. I wanted to know where it came from, what its cultural significance was, and why it had been made. Instead, I was offered an interpretation that was primarily critical: the piece was framed as an emblem of cruelty. This left me dissatisfied. I wanted history; I was given politics.
This points to a deeper problem: the National Trust appears to have taken on the role of political historian or activist, rather than conservationist. It is obvious to me that the charity’s duty is to conserve and inform, providing the facts and allowing viewers to interpret them, rather than to prescribe political meanings.
The exhibition I saw in the Grand Hall at Penrhyn Castle, launched on the 6th July 2025, seemed to follow the pattern I describe above. Much of the information was presented in a way that decontextualised history, extracting objects and events from their broader cultural frameworks in order to fit a particular political narrative.
A sign explaining the theme of the exhibition
‘This exhibition reframes the 1832 painting of the world-famous Penrhyn Slate Quarry by Henry Hawkins, surrounding it with artworks created by the community of Bethesda, a village which grew from the success of its development. Formerly known as Chwarel Cae Braich y Cafin, it was industrialised by the Pennant family during the 1770s with profits from their Jamaican sugar plantations and later, with compensation received following the abolition of slavery. The highly skilled quarrymen also worked under terrible conditions to produce even more wealth for the family who built this castle.
Having examined the painting commissioned by George Hay-Dawkins Pennant during the quarry’s heyday, the project’s participants collaborated with local artists to make these exhibits in response. Pottery pieces with gold-stamped words from the mouths of quarrymen reflect the richness of the Welsh language which the community retains, a multimedia collage reveals the layers of proud social history hidden beneath the romanticised painting, and playful garments display a contrast between the quarry’s dangerous past and working present as well as its enduring attraction to visitors.’
‘Slate Quarry’ by Henry Hawkins, 1832, on which the exhibition is based
The National Trust website says about ‘Slate Quarry’ by Henry Hawkins, 1832,
‘It dates from 1832, a period of boom for the quarry, both financially and culturally. However, even though this period was decades before the Great Strike of Penrhyn Quarry or any significant industrial disputes, the working conditions were still incredibly dangerous, with injuries and death a constant threat, and the capitalist system in place meant there were extreme class disparities.’
A display of ceramics with text in Welsh relating to the slate quarries
These hand-made ceramics were made by ex-quarry workers and by the artist Rhiannon Gwyn. On each piece a name is written in Welsh of, for instance, galleries and tools used.
The Introduction continues:
A sign at Penrhyn Castle reflects on how different times bring different attitudes
‘Not all traditions continue, our heritage adapts as it passes from one generation to the next. Although the Penrhyn Quarry still produces slate, the terrible working conditions of the quarrymen ended, as did the horrors of slavery. It is our responsibility to share stories and perspectives that enrich our understanding of the past and we are grateful to the community of Dyffryn Ogwen for creating this exhibition with us.’
and the National Trust’s website adds,
‘Although the great wealth the Pennant family received at the expense of Jamaican enslaved people and local quarry workers is repugnant and still bitter to many, and the scars of working conditions still hurt, the Welsh language, community pride and humour shine on in the Ogwen Valley. This is our wealth.’
We can all be grateful that the cruelty and exploitation of the slave trade and the mistreatment of the quarrymen are now things of the past. These things happened, and similar things continue to happen in some parts of the world. But what are these works of art really intended to convey, given that they do not report factual information, let alone any context? The artwork is supposed to be in a similar style to pottery produced by the quarrymen themselves, but they present the story by means of speculation, with no attempt made at objectivity or historical accuracy, even though this is surely central to the mission of the National Trust.
COME AND LISTEN
If Pennant’s pounds are still in the stones,
if the shame of Jamaica can’t be forgotten,
if chipping living on perilous shelves
forms part of the psyche, if Bethesda’s scars
are ones still carried, sometimes bitterly,
sometimes with pride as large as a rockface,
all the while a language makes a racket
and the dragon’s red tongue retains an edge.
Come along. Come and listen to the idiom
carved here as sharply as a smoothed slate,
have a nine-o-clock cuppa and lend an ear to the dialogue
found in laughter, jokes and rebukes
and then see the sun’s razor beam
over the grey heaps of Cae Braich y Cafin.
This poem interweaves the Pennants’ wealth from slavery in Jamaica with the exploitation of quarrymen in North Wales. While it is undeniably powerful, it doesn’t allow the pottery to speak for itself. The pottery communicates through form, material, and craft. By framing it with words, especially politically charged words, the poet risks narrowing its meaning and imposing an interpretation. Visitors are guided towards a generalised reading of the work rather than a close reading and interpretation of the art and its known history. More crucially, the readers are directed to a one-sided and subjective, though arguably plausible, interpretation of the art. The poem co-opts the pottery into a political stance which overshadows its other possible meanings.
LAYERS
In this moment’s timeworn paint
in textures of shadows
what can you see?
“Do you see, as those visitors did, the profits of quarries,
the piles of money in the slabs?
Or do you see dark and cold fissures in harsh rock
and a community of hardship, its fears binding it tightly.
in hearty laughter?
Under the greyness, in the attire
of one image lies another;
One image subsumes another
and layers tint history.
Go back. Take a closer look.”
The poem above, Layers, is written by poet Rhys Iorwerth in response to a collage.
Here the didactic tone is unmistakable. The poet dictates the audience’s perception, framing the artwork as a choice between profit or hardship, money or suffering. History is reduced to a binary, and the audience is told what to see. While this could be considered a plausible point of view and is undoubtedly thought-provoking, history is being oversimplified and one interpretation is allowed to crowd out a range of other possible responses.
The deeper issue, then, is not the individual poems or exhibitions themselves, but the National Trust’s direction as an institution. Hillary McGrady, the Director-General, said in 2021:
‘The work of the National Trust is always guided by our charitable purpose, which places on us a duty to promote the preservation of nature, beauty and history, for the benefit of the whole nation. We can only do that if we reflect the nations and communities we serve.’
While this statement appears balanced, in practice it has often meant promoting particular political narratives. Instead of preserving history and beauty in their fullness, the National Trust risks eroding them through politicised interpretation.
My visit to Penrhyn Castle revealed both the splendour of history and the weight of politics. The castle itself is an awe-inspiring monument, a place of quiet grandeur. Yet the exhibition layered onto it sought to politicise the past, using poetry and critical interpretation to frame the visitor’s experience.
While acknowledging slavery and quarrying exploitation is important, the way this was done — often didactic, sometimes decontextualised, frequently partisan — raises concerns about the National Trust’s role. The Trust was founded to preserve beauty and history, not to advance political agendas.
The challenge, therefore, is balance. If the National Trust continues down this path, it risks alienating members and undermining its founding principles. It must decide: does it wish to be a neutral guardian of heritage, or a platform for political critique? If it chooses the latter, it may erode the very trust that millions of members have placed in it.