A roaring fire was waiting for us, the flames hungrily licking the wood with a satisfying crackle. The sun had just set on a day of icy winter sunshine, the old castle now illuminated and framed by the sitting room’s Gothic-style arched windows.
We had arrived for a weekend at The West End, a generous hunk of Hawarden Castle in North Wales. Once the Flintshire home of the 19th century prime minister William Gladstone, its western wing has been recast as a holiday house by its current custodians, Charlie and Caroline Gladstone. Alongside various of their six grown-up children, it is just one of many ways in which the couple is opening up the estate. And in their signature joyful fashion, a stuffy castle apartment this is not. Its handsome bones have been emboldened by a maximalist riot of colour — hot pinks and spearmint greens — while each wall is an art gallery within itself with more than 100 original works, including Hirsts and Shrigleys, hung across its five bedrooms and living spaces.
