The festive season is well and truly upon us – and one of Welshpool's top landmarks has marked the occasion with a grand makeover.
Multiple rooms of Powis Castle have been adorned with Christmas decorations to reflect and celebrate the castle’s extensive and historic collection.
The theme of each individual room along Christmas tour of the castle has been picked based on a specific esteemed artefact within said room, one picked out after castle staff and volunteers consulted with visitors over what stood out to them.
Sharon Dean, Powis Castle’s visitor experience officer, led a creative team who constructed the castle’s first full scale Christmas celebrations since 2019, having scaled down the past two years as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.
A sixteen foot Christmas tree, assembled piece by piece on the staircase by castle staff, has been decorated to match a wall painting of Neptune, Roman God of the Sea.
The state dining room boasts an Venetian themed Christmas, littered with red, whites and greens, based on the oil canvas painting ‘A View of Verona’ by Bernardo Bellotto hanging in the room.
Visitors will then be treated to a Chinese festive scene in the Blue Drawing Room, inspired by the Seventeenth Century sixfold Chinese screen that illustrates the eightieth birthday celebrations of one of the most famous generals from the Tang Dynasty, Guō Ziyi.
Many of the decorations throughout the castle were hand crafted by National Trust staff and volunteers, including the paper dragons and baubles in the Blue Drawing Room.
The Long Gallery takes visitors back to Tudor times. With foliage garlands and festive smells, it features a traditional Kissing Bough, a wooden hoop decorated with mistletoe which would have been hung by the door to welcome visitors.
The two Christmas trees in the Oak Drawing Room are decorated with colourful birds and feathers to represent the Victorian bird screen. Displaying 80 South American taxidermy birds, the screen dates back to the 1850s and would have been placed in front of the fireplace during the summer months
Two bedrooms stand as strong contrasts in festive celebrations. The State Bedroom is adorned with items that reflect the extravagant décor of the room itself in which people of high status and wealth stayed, while the Walcot bedroom is set up to represent traditional child’s bedroom with stockings and presents at the end of the bed.
Powis Castle is open until 7pm to give visitors a chance to see the Christmas décor, until December 18.
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