CHIRK Castle has gone all romantic this springtime.
The tragic story of Charles Darwin’s first love will feature in a lecture at the castle, near Llangollen, as part of the bicentennial celebrations of his birth.
The great naturalist left his first love Fanny Mostyn Owen when he set sail on The Beagle for a five-year voyage.
He wrote many love letters to ‘la belle Fanny’ during his journey.
Sadly, there was no happy ending to the love story as he discovered Fanny married Robert Myddelton Biddulph, of Chirk Castle, while he was away.
The castle has the only portrait of Fanny in existence, which will be on display throughout the celebrations, with the lecture taking place on Saturday, April 25, in the castle’s chapel.
If that’s not enough, readings of heart-warming letters written by a soldier from the trenches during the battle of Gallipoli to his young children can be heard at the castle thanks to new technology.
The letters were written during the First World War by Howard de Walden, whose family lived at Chirk Castle during this time as a keepsake in case he didn’t return. In them, his memories of the castle and the views which surround it are still vivid.
They can be heard from a press-button chatterbox.
