Plas Rhianfa
Glyn Garth, Beaumaris, Anglesey, LL59 5NS
01248 713656
Category: Isle of Anglesey
A truly theatrical experience - become Lord of the Manor at this ourstanding historic property. Warm and supremely comfortable too, with luxurious bedrooms. Superb location on Anglesey's Menai Strait, with exotic gardens and expansive views.
Plas Rhianfa is probably the most opulent - certain the most palatial - of hotels in Wales. From the outside, it looks like a fairytale palace - which is what it is.
This Grade II Star listed building, modelled on a French Renaissance château, was built in 1849 as an aristocratic country retreat. Some retreat. From the tips of its conical towers to the bottom of its exotic gardens, lapped by the waters of the Menai Strait, it’s a survivor from the vanished age of unimaginable privilege.
Within, the effect is - if anything - even more eye-opening. You almost need satnav to find your way around this many-chambered mansion. There are, for example, grand spaces like the Drawing Room and intimate cubby holes hidden within those conical towers, summer and winter terraces, a Music Room and Garden Room. The overall effect is… well, quite overwhelming.
The furnishing and décor are perfectly pitched for such theatrical surroundings, with tapestries and telescopes, portraits and painted ceilings, chandeliers and gilded mirrors, statues and stained glass windows. Suffice it to say that Plas Rhianfa doesn’t do modish minimalism, though the big bedrooms (with vast beds) have fabulous contemporary bathrooms and a ‘vintage-modern’ style which, again, is perfectly in tune with this 21st-century palace.
Dining is another ‘experience’, in a tall-ceilinged wood-panelled hall with - like the rest of Plas Rhianfa - dreamy views across the Menai Strait to the mountains of Snowdonia.
Visit Plas Rhianfa
01248 713656
www.plasrhianfa.com