Qualla: Powis Castle

Powis Castle: Introduction

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit grassrootsgroundswell, CC BY 2.0. A Mughal emperor's tiger-head finial sits in a display case inside a medieval Welsh castle. Beside it, ivory chess pieces from 18th-century India share a room with portraits of the Herbert family, whose ancestors once fought alongside the native princes of Powys. Powis Castle, near Welshpool in Powys, is a place where Welsh medieval history and British imperial history collide in ways that are illuminating, uncomfortable, and impossible to ignore. The castle itself dates from the 13th century. The collection inside it spans continents and centuries, and the gardens that cascade down the hillside below are considered the finest surviving Baroque terraces in all of Britain.

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Image: grassrootsgroundswell | CC BY 2.0

Powis Castle: The Terraces That Survived

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rosser1954, CC BY-SA 4.0. Garden historian Elisabeth Whittle called the gardens at Powis "the most important and magnificent in Wales." Hewn from solid rock between the 1670s and 1705 under the direction of William Winde and the French gardener Adrian Duvall, the terraces descend from the castle in a seri...

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Image: Rosser1954 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Powis Castle: Yews Like Nothing Else

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Michael Garlick, CC BY-SA 2.0. The Top Terrace's fourteen yew trees are Powis Castle's most distinctive feature. Planted by the 2nd Marquess in the 1720s and originally clipped into tight obelisks, they have been allowed over three centuries to grow into enormous, amorphous green forms that billow like frozen ...

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Image: Michael Garlick | CC BY-SA 2.0

Powis Castle: Clive of India's Cabinet

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Manfred Heyde, CC BY-SA 3.0. The castle's interior took a dramatic turn in the 18th century when the Herbert family's fortunes became entwined with the British East India Company. Edward Clive, son of Robert Clive -- "Clive of India" -- married into the Herbert family, and the South Asian collection he broug...

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Image: Manfred Heyde | CC BY-SA 3.0

Powis Castle: Reckoning with History

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Hefin Owen from Wales, CC BY-SA 2.0. The National Trust, which manages the castle, has committed to reinterpreting the South Asian collection in light of its colonial origins. In 2020, a post-doctoral research project was commissioned jointly with the Ashmolean Museum, and a PhD studentship with the University of Ca...

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Image: Hefin Owen from Wales | CC BY-SA 2.0

Powis Castle: Countess Violet's Fury

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit David Barnes, CC BY-SA 2.0. The last major transformation of the gardens came in the early 20th century, driven by Violet Herbert, Countess of Powis, whose ambition was to create "the most beautiful garden in England and Wales." When a storm in 1912 felled the elm trees that had screened the kitchen garden'...

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Image: David Barnes | CC BY-SA 2.0