Baron Hill Park

Baron Hill is in Beaumaris, Anglesey, Wales. Baron Hill House and the associated Baron Hill Park were established in 1618 by Sir Richard Bulkeley as the family seat of the influential Bulkeley family. Parts of the park are a site of special scientific interest.Baron Hill HouseDuring the English Civil War, Richard Bulkeley's successor, Colonel Thomas Bulkeley (later (Thomas Bulkeley, 1st Viscount Bulkeley), is said to have invited King Charles I to take possession of the house and set up his court there. In the eighteenth century the house was the seat of Richard Bulkeley, 4th Viscount Bulkeley who maintained Jacobite sympathies.The Neo-Palladian style is obvious from the curved facade of the building to the terraces, follies and balconies; this was the style adopted during the 1776 reconstruction of the mansion by architect Samuel Wyatt. However, the mansion was originally built in 1618. There is also an icehouse in the gardens and a lodge house.In the nineteenth century the occupants of Baron Hill remained the dominant Anglesey landowners, possessing estate also at Llanfairfechan and other parts of Caernarfonshire.During World War I, death duties soaked up the family fortune and made it impossible for the family (by then called Williams-Bulkeley) to continue to maintain the house. During the war, Royal Engineers were stationed at the house. It was later damaged by fire, but the shell of the house survives. Sir Richard Williams-Bulkeley lives at neighbouring Red Hill.