National Trust - Plas Newydd

Plas Newydd (meaning New House in English) is a National Trust property on the Isle of Anglesey in North Wales.  We visited one very wet day back in May 2018.

Normally you can see across the Menai strait from Anglesey to North Wales but the day we went you were lucky to see the end of the lawn.

I'm sure in the sunshine the gardens would look spectacular.

It's definitely a place to take a picnic and relax for a few hours.  You could spend a good hour or two just wandering the grounds.

You can read more about the house here

Plas Newyyd is also home to the famous Rex Whistler Mural, although if I'm being totally honest I'd never heard of it, or him really.  Sorry Rex.

Rex Whistler Mural

Commissioned by Charles, 6th Marquess of Anglesey in 1936, much of the composition of this picture is purely imaginary, although there are some recognisable architectural features and personal references to the family. The young man sweeping up leaves at the end of the arcade is a self-portrait of the artist. This is the last of Rex Whistler’s extensive murals.  It is painted on a giant single canvas, woven in France, of 58 feet in length. The artist, a prominent stage designer, painted it in a theatre workshop in London, before it was taken to Plas Newydd on the Isle of Anglesey, Wales, in 1937 and completed there.

Rex Whistler always intended to return to Plas Newydd after the Second World War to complete some of the unfinished details of the mural.  Tragically, he was killed on his first day of active duty in France on the 18 July 1944.