Powis Castle

]] In 1286, four years after the conquest of Wales, Gruffydd's son, Owain ap Gruffydd ap Gwenwynwyn became the last hereditary prince of Powys when he renounced his royal title, and was granted the barony of de la Pole, (i.e. "of the Pool", a reference to Welshpool, formerly called just "Pool"). The ancient Kingdom of Powys had once included the counties of Montgomeryshire, much of Denbighshire, parts of Radnorshire and large areas of Shropshire, but by the 13th century had been reduced to two independent principalities – Powys Wenwynwyn and Powys Fadog – roughly equivalent to Montgomeryshire and South Denbighshire (plus Maelor Saesneg), respectively; Welshpool had become the capital of…

Scourfield and Haslam, in their Powys volume of Pevsner's The Buildings of Wales, describe the castle interiors as "the most magnificent in Wales". They contain murals and ceiling paintings by Antonio Verrio and Gerard Lanscroon; a collection of Elizabethan and Jacobean family portraits mainly of members of the Herberts of Chirbury, who inherited the castle in the early 18th century; Carolean furnishings of notable richness and quality; and items from the picture and Indian collections of Robert Clive. The early 20th-century redevelopment and redecoration undertaken by George Bodley was sensitively handled, Scourfield and Haslam consider it "appropriate and finely executed", and it is the…

statue which stood originally in the Water Garden]] On the restoration, the Herberts returned to Powis, and in 1674 William Herbert () was created Earl of Powis (of the first creation). The state bedroom was installed in about 1665 and further improvements, including the construction of the Great Staircase followed in the 1670s. These developments were most probably carried out under the direction of William Winde, who may also have designed the terraced gardens. His employer, although restored to his estates, and raised in the peerage, was barred by his Catholic faith from high office under Charles II. On the accession of the King's brother, James in 1685, Herbert became one of the new…