This historic hotel has a characterful and intriguing past
The Castle Hotel has attracted many distinguished visitors. In 1832, hosts Samuel and Cordelia Owen were honoured to serve lunch to the heir presumptive to the throne, the 13-year-old Princess Victoria. Together with her mother, the glamorous Duchess of Kent, she was on a day-trip to the town as part of an extended summer visit to North Wales.
The letter D carved in stone above the portico of The Castle Hotel commemorates the ownership of Miss Sarah Dutton. Her owership lasted from the late 1860s until her death, aged 84, in 1920. In the 1890s, she commissioned the famous Chester architect John Douglas to create a new façade for the building in the neo-Jacobean style we see today. She also commissioned the artists Buckley Ousey and John Dawson Watson to produce the many works that still adorn the interior.
