AN HISTORIC Welsh castle is going under the hammer next month - and you could snap it up for the same price as a one-bed flat in London.
The current owners of Gwrych Castle in Abergele, Conwy, which has been decaying since closing to the public in 1985, have asked for offers over £600,000.
For the same price you can get a two-bedroom flat in Kensington or a four-bedroom house in Chingford.
It would also buy you a one-bed flat in Canary Wharf, which would be considerably smaller than a castle.
The sprawling home boasts a frontage of 1,500ft in length and has six miles of walls around the 160-acre estate.
It was built between 1812 and 1822 by a local family who wanted a memorial to their ancestors.
It was used to house Jewish refugees during World War II before being sold in the 1940s because of death duties.
In 1989 an ambitious plan to transform it into an opera centre fell through.
And over the last three decades it has been stripped of all its interior fixtures and fittings.
Travellers moved in and removed the lead from the roof, stripped the slates and take out the floorboards and fireplaces.
The roof structure and all the intermediate floors have also now been lost.
Dr Mark Baker, an expert in Welsh historic houses, and his band of 65 volunteers rode to the castle's rescue in 1997 and set up the charity, the Gwrych Castle Preservation Trust.
He told Wales Online: “Throughout the 1990s it was asset striped. You had salvage people going in taking out fireplaces and doors, the top range stuff.
“In the mid-90s travellers moved in and took all the lead off the roof, stripped the slates off and then took all the floorboards wiring and glass out."
He described the castle as "just a skeleton of a building" when the travellers moved out.
The group's first priority was to rescue its crumbling tower, which they did with the help of local builders and chimney sweeps.
It was bought by Edwards Property Management in 2010 but their plans to turn it into a five-star country hotel fell through.
It will go under the hammer at the AJ Bell Stadium in Manchester, on April 17.
Drone footage provided by skyweb.media.
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