Railway Museum at Penrhyn Castle

Penrhyn Castle is a mansion and park built by George Dawkins-Pennant, who inherited a fortune in slate quarries in north Wales and slave-worked sugar plantations in Jamaica. In the stable block of the castle is a small but important railway collection associated with the region’s slate quarries. The oldest item is the narrow-gauge steam locomotive Fire Queen, built in 1848, which operated on the private railway from the Dinorwic slate quarries at Llanberis to the sea at Y Felinheli. Among other exhibits are two Hunslet engines of 1882 and 1904 that were used within the Penrhyn quarries, an open coach from the trains that carried quarrymen to work and a saloon coach for the Penrhyn quarry owners. The vast Penrhyn Castle was built between 1820 and 1833 to designs by Thomas Hopper in the impressive but aggressive style of a Norman fortresses – an extraordinary symbol of conspicuous wealth. The castle and museum are part of the Slate Landscapes of Northwest Wales World Heritage site and owned by the National Trust.