Jonathan Thomas (00:02)
Welcome back to the Anglotopia podcast this week. We have a special guest We have somebody who owns a castle a real castle in England We have with us Peter Frost-Pennington who is the owner of Muncaster castle in Cumbria, which is in the Lake District Muncaster is a medieval castle on the edge of Cumbria just a mile or so from the sea at Ravenglass it's a very remote part of England and But also a perfect place for a castle because even the Romans had an outpost nearby

I visited Muncaster back in 2018 on a visit to the Lake District and fell in love with the place. Peter happens to be a subscriber to the Anglotopia newsletter and we connected and he got in touch with us. And so I'm delighted to have him speak to us about his castle, its history, and what there is to see and do around it. So welcome Peter.

Peterv Frost-Pennington (00:51)
Well, thanks very much, Jonathan. Just start off with some minor corrections. I do live here, but I'm not technically the owner, but I'm married to the owner. So I suppose what's hers is mine. But we're a very matriarchal society, and my wife does all the work and I just talk about it. So she's off doing something. But it's fun. And in fact, this castle is built to keep me out because I originally hail from north of the border, Scotland or Edinburgh.

and but we've captured the castle through love rather than by conquest after all these years. But yeah it is our family home and it's just a fabulously romantic and very strategic place.

Jonathan Thomas (01:33)
Well, fantastic. So you've started there, but let's set the scene for us. Please tell our listeners about your castle, why it's famous, where it is, and why they should come visit.

Peterv Frost-Pennington (01:43)
Well, we're situated on the far northwest of England. So in near the debatable lands, the borders between England and Scotland in an area called Cumbria, although we've just gone back to the more historical name in our local government reorganization of Cumberland. So I know there's plenty of Cumberlands all over the world, but we are the original Cumberland, home of the Cumberland sausage and all that kind of stuff. We're on the edge of the English Lake District. We're in the English Lake District National Park.

And in fact, we're one of the few places in the world to be in two World Heritage sites. Because not only is the English Lake District designated World Heritage site, but we're seen as the start of the Roman frontiers, the frontiers of the Roman Empire. We're not technically Hadrian's Wall. Hadrian's Wall is quite a bit to the north of us. But we're on the coast. We're, if you like, the Camp Bastion of Hadrian's Wall. So Agricola, the Roman general, sailed into Ravenglass, which is the little

village next door to Muncaster The parish is Muncaster and the little village in the parish is Ravenglass. And it's a fabulous little harbour because there three rivers drained naturally into a basin that's protected by two sort of land spits. So it gives a very sheltered harbour. An agriecola sailed in in 79 AD and stamped his mark here, set up a port and a fort. And this was where the Romans used to supply the whole of the north of England. So we are recognised

as the start of the Hadrianic or the Roman frontier. And as I understand it, and other authorities might correct me, but as I understand it, there's a Roman mile for that every Roman mile from Muncaster right through to South Shields, a wall's end on the far side of England. And of course, where the Iran out of coast, Hadrian had to build a wall. So that's become Hadrian's wall. We have some of the highest free standing Roman walls outside of the south of England, outside of Kent.

because down between the castle and the village is the Roman bathhouse and the walls there stand about 15 foot high and I'm pretty sure the Pennington family originally lived there because they didn't know it was a Roman bathhouse but they saw this lovely Roman villa by the sea. It had underfloor heating, it had fresh running water, it was next to the coast and you could jump in your little canoe or boat.

And that was the main way they got around in those days by sailing up and down the rivers or up and down the coast. And it was a fabulous view. But in the sort of 1290s or so, when the Anglo -Scots War started, when Edward I of England started trying to stamp his authority over Scotland and Wales and started raiding into Scotland, of course, what you reap, you sow. And so the Scots started coming back raiding as well. And the family, I think, then realized

living in a nice Roman villa by the sea was not the easiest place to defend. So they came up here to the hill above the town or the village, which commands one of the river crossings and a very strategic spot, and built a more fortified castle on the site of an old Roman watchtower. And we've been here ever since. But because the Roman bathhouse used to be the ancient family home, I'm pretty sure that's why the walls are still there.

because the family stopped the locals stealing the stone to build their own houses. So it's still very much in our hearts and shows the ancientness of this site. Of course, before the Romans were here, prehistoric man has lived here for millennia and we have Stone Age axes here. We have arrow flints and all sorts of things. And if you ever come, as I hope you all will, as Jonathan says, it's an amazing place because we're a bit hard to get to. We're on the edge of empire, if you like, on the edge of the UK.

But the views are stunning and it's the one point, the Lake District is famous for its mountains and lakes and it has a broad coastal plain to the north and south of us. But this is the one point where Scarfell Pike, which is England's highest mountain, we can, in fact I'm looking at it now out of the window and we're more or less at sea level and a lot of it's nothing compared to the Rockies or what you have over there in the States. It's huge as far as we're concerned. It's only a few miles from the coast.

So it's a very strategic point and it's where the mountains are literally tumbling into the sea. So whoever holds this bit of land can just control what's happening in the neighborhood. And if you're heading south to Manchester or Lancaster anywhere and we don't want you to cross our river, you don't cross our river without paying us a fee or something. And in times of war or conflict, all the locals would gather here in the fortified tower.

and we'd slam the door shut and hurl insults at the Scots and hope they went on to richer pickings elsewhere. So I'm sorry that's a very long introduction, but it's just a beautiful, beautiful part of the world. John Ruskin, the famous Victorian who came here in the 19th century, presumably for afternoon tea with Lord Muncaster he described the view that I'm looking at now out of this window as gateway to paradise. And it's little changed since his time. So you're almost in heaven, but not quite.

I think the view has changed very little since Roman times. I'll shut up there and let you get a word in edgeways, Jonathan.

Jonathan Thomas (07:07)
I can confirm that it is a very remote spot. When I visited, I drove up through the Hardknot Pass and through the Roman Fort and drove down into the Esk Valley and then I rode the train, the little ratty train, the Ravenglass Railway, and then I ended the day at your castle. It was such a sublime place to visit after a day of traveling.

Peterv Frost-Pennington (07:15)
Ho ho ho, brave man!

Jonathan Thomas (07:37)
was a quiet day. It's setting in the landscape is just so stunning. And I was just like, it was a great place to spend an afternoon and I definitely want to come back.

Peterv Frost-Pennington (07:49)
Well, anytime. Next time you come, you see, that's what many people come. They come for an hour or two in the afternoon, and that's absolutely fine. And we love greeting people from all over the world. But the best time of day is early in the morning or late in the afternoon or evening. Like now where I'm speaking, it's UK time. We're just going into the evening. And it's absolutely brilliant because you get the place to yourself again. And as well as, you know, greeting visitors, we have accommodation, we run hotels. And I just love the fact when people come to stay here, they get it all to themselves.

we're hanging around as well, and the peace and solitude. So next time you come, don't come for the afternoon, come for the whole day and night and just enjoy. And that's what we're also trying to use the castle for. We're very much reaching out to any overseas market, but particularly the USA, because after its initial role of being a place of defense for the local community and protection, obviously as the ages go on,

that socially times move on and central government gets stronger. There was no need for a castle on the hill because you didn't have to fight off the neighbors or the Scots coming past. as England joined with Scotland and the parliaments joined together, the UK came together as a bigger country, tiny compared to America. And so we no longer needed a fortress. But one of the ancestors who became the first Lord Muncaster,

came here and looked at this sort of falling apart medieval fortress and said, hey guys, I want to impress and entertain my friends in style. And so he sort of changed the script to being a building to impress and entertain, which was initially only for his friends and family and to show off his, important and what a big dude he was. And so he put this wonderful, this was the medieval kitchens by the, this is the 1780s we're talking of.

Power was no longer the force of arms or the number of people you had in your mini army to fight for you. Power was knowledge. So, you know, anyone as anyone had to have books. This was the Google or the internet of the 18th century. And it must have been amazing to find out what was happening, the age of enlightenment in the new lands of America or in Europe and the new ideas coming in. And behind me there are about 4 ,000 books and this is how people got on in those days. But he turned it into place.

to impress and entertain in style. And boy, do we love doing that. People come and ask us, do you really live here? And we say, yes, we do. I think we have the idea we're swaddling around in all these rooms and snapping our fingers and the butler will come running. I wish. We might well be the butler if you come to visit. And in fact, the only room you can't see at Muncaster is the kitchen because the first Lord Muncaster moved the medieval kitchen from this room to the far end of the castle.

and we live in it. So basically we live in one room, but it's warm and we have dogs and cats and terrible mess. So you'll come to England as Jonathan knows and go to many fabulous stately homes and see the beautiful ancient kitchen and all the copper work and all the stoves laid out. However, I'm afraid unless you ask very nicely, you can't see our kitchen, but it's because we're still using it. So it's a living, breathing place.

And the family is quite eccentric at times. But if we want to do something, hey, we'll do it. So if we want to have a fancy dress party in here, we'll have a fancy dress party in here. we like saying yes and not no. Although sometimes we are stewards of these wonderful historic objects and furniture. we don't, Jonathan introduced me as the owner, we don't see ourselves as owning this place. We just see us as the stewards of the place. And we're on

Well, in English, I would use the term cricket, but maybe I don't know what they couldn't would be in baseball, but you're on the stump. You're batting at the moment. And I'm delighted to say we're in the process of handing over to my son, who's come back from America. He spent three years in California and it's his job now to look after the place. Now can just swan around and enjoy myself and hope we're friends and family. So it's a wonderful place. And even if you can only come for a few hours, do come. But if you'd like to come and stay or do a bit more

dine in our fabulous dining room and meet us the family and we take you around or take you out to this wonderful part of the world, two World Heritage sites, then we'd love to see

Jonathan Thomas (12:16)
So that brings me to my next question is, okay, so you're not the owner, you married into this family, so how did you find yourself, what's the story there? How did you find yourself becoming the steward of a castle?

Peterv Frost-Pennington (12:27)
well this is not complicated at all. I'm a city kid. I come from Edinburgh. I always wanted to be in the countryside. I actually wanted to be a farmer. I just wanted to escape the city and be farming cows or cattle and sheep. And I grew up with the James Heret stories and I'm sure American cousins are well aware of that. He was a famous vet in the 1940s and 50s.

And he was quite inspirational to me. And James Herriot became a vet and married a farmer's daughter. And I thought, aha, perhaps I could become a farmer by becoming a vet. And I loved animals. So I luckily managed to get into vet college, became a vet, did my training. And I came here as a student. I worked with local veterinarians in this area and absolutely fell in love with it. It's like a miniature Scotland down here. It's got the mountains, the lakes, the lochs in Scotland.

The people are lovely as well and I fell in love with the place and luckily when I qualified, they offered me a job here. So I just arrived and I was working and I got invited to a party. Like most parties, the best place in the party is in the kitchen and I came to the kitchen, here was this young lady and her first words to me were, you're the new vet in town. Can you come and castrate my bears, please? And I thought,

It was an interesting opening line and I thought you're a dangerous woman and I've never changed my opinion ever since. And what was bizarre was she was the daughter of the house. We had a mini zoo here and they did have bears here. Not American bears, we had Asiatic black Himalayan bears. were moon bears. They had a half moon crescent on them. And that's a funny story because one of the ancestors got eaten by a bear.

out in India, he was working in India many, many years ago in the 19th century and this poor young chap died of his wounds. And I'm sure, you know, this in the UK, people have no idea how dangerous bears are, but I know you all know how dangerous bears really are. And he got beaten up by a bear and died. many years later, my wife's grandmother was in Harrods Pet Shop in London in the 1960s where you could buy almost anything. Luckily things have changed since then.

Jonathan Thomas (14:32)
Yeah.

Peterv Frost-Pennington (14:46)
and she saw this little bear cub in a tiny little cage in Harrods Pet Shop and I don't know if she took a pitch in it because it was in a small cage or she wanted to get her own back because a bear had eaten her uncle or great uncle but she bought it I don't know I believe this part of story but she apparently hailed a taxi on Kensington High Street in London and told the taxi driver take this bear to Muncaster my good man which is well a short drive in American terms

three or four hundred miles in British terms and that must have been some taxi fare. So they got a bear and they got another bear called Rupert and they fell in love and did what came naturally and so by the time I arrived in the scene we had bears not quite everywhere but Iona wanted to stop the breeding activities. I managed to persuade her not to castrate Rupert the bear and we actually eventually ended up sending them

Jonathan Thomas (15:32)
Ha ha.

Peterv Frost-Pennington (15:40)
to various zoos and we concentrate on birds of prey. But that's the first time I met my wife and one thing led to another and for better or for worse, I did marry my farmer's daughter because her parents were farmers. The complication was the family also owned a castle. So I've seen to spend most of my working life now farming tourists. Although I'm very pleased to say that at the ripe old age of 62, my ambition has finally been satisfied because

as some of the sort of environmental schemes that around here. We've just bought some cattle and we're now personally responsible for farming a flock of flock a herd of beef cattle that are running around the hills here. So I'm in fact, we're slightly worried today there's one of them duty calf. So at last at the age of 62, so live your dream guys. You can get there eventually and have a long way. So that's a long complicated story, but that's

Jonathan Thomas (16:29)
Living the dream.

Peterv Frost-Pennington (16:37)
I got hooked into it. And for me, know, this is incredible. I'm not of this world. But suddenly I'm married to, well, now the queen. was my mother -in -law, because my wife is one of four girls, and her mother was one of four girls. So twice it's gone down the female line. Although very pleased we've had two boys and a girl. You know, it just so happens our son is taking over, but our daughter's probably.

Don't tell my son, but my daughter might be the better person to run this place. Anyway, we'll see how he does. And if he makes a rubbish job of it, we'll call her back in. but hey, you know, live your dreams, guys.

Jonathan Thomas (17:16)
So speaking of the place as a tourist attraction, I was reading when I was reading up on the history of the place that your predecessors actually kind of restored the castle and turned it into a tourist attraction. Can you tell us more about that, about the history of

Peterv Frost-Pennington (17:33)
Yeah, well, it's quite a complicated family. I mean, it's stayed in the same family for over 800 years. The Pennington family have lived here. The official date we tend to give is the 1st of December 1208 when Bad King John, and I don't know if you know about, but he wasn't one of our better kings in this country, but he was running around the country sort of trying to raise cash, and he came up north and was handing out favors. And the first

definite record we have of a Pennington owning here was this grant of land to an Alan de Muncaster, or Alan de Pennington rather, in 1st December 1208. Although there's references to the family being here long before that, the century or two before. And of course this is very much a Viking area. After the Romans left, the Norsemen, the Scandinavians, the Vikings came raiding around the coast and setting up, and that's why many of our place names are

of Viking origin. don't have valleys and mountains here. We have dales and fells. Dale being a valley and a mountain being a fell. And we're on the river -esque and a lot of the Viking influence is here. And so the Pennington's arrived in 1208. We've lived here ever since. They made their money out of agriculture, mining, et cetera.

defending the northern marches from the rampaging Scots for many centuries, and then sort of mining and forestry and agriculture. But by the last true Lord Muncaster died in 1917. So we're just playing Mr. and Mrs. I'm not a Lord or Lady, thank goodness. I'm just Mr. Frost-Pennington, and quite rightly so. And my wife's great grandfather inherited the place from his cousin. So it has stayed in the same family.

but not quite by direct line. this chap called Sir John Ramston had estates and properties all over the place. He was farming in Malaya and doing rubber farming there. had estates in Kenya and estates in Scotland. So he wasn't here a huge amount of time, but we have fabulous gardens and we owe a lot to Sir John. Came here in the 1920s and 30s, he had 30 gardens working for him.

He was subscribing to all the great plant hunting expeditions to China and the Far East. So we've got a fabulous horticultural collection of rare rhododendrons and plants. you know, in the UK, these houses were lived in. They survived the First World War. After the Second World War, there was a change in politics, and many of these places were pulled down and demolished. And suddenly, society woke up to the fact that these places have kind of lost their way.

and they started opening up some of them as tourist attractions and I'm sure you'll know the Blenheims and the Chatsworths, what I call the Premier League, where maybe, I don't know, a second division or third division, but you know, more fun than lower leagues. And Muncaster opened its gates to the tourist attraction way back in 1968, so we've been open to the public for well over 50 years. There were quite a lot of people, as I understand it, from I think 1905, anyone could turn up

go around the gardens if they paid a shilling or two to the gatekeeper. So we've been in tourism for a long time, but really in the UK anyway, tourism didn't take off until mass transport and families managed to get the income that, and the arrival of trains helped in the 19th century, but you know, really in our country, families didn't own cars until really after the second world war. by the sixties, there was a lot of local tourism and we've been a tourist attraction ever since. And we've always had a...

as well as the castle, historic side, we've had wonderful gardens and this mini zoo, which is why we had the bears. But in the mid 80s, we decided to specialise and do conservation work. we've always been a bird garden, but we developed the what's now the Hawken Owl Centre. We specialised on owls and had a collection of owls here long before Harry Potter. Harry Potter came along and absolutely fabulous because until then, at least in the UK,

And many cultures around the world, owls are seen as birds of ill omen and creatures of the night. With Harry Potter, everyone just loves owls. And they became very trendy. We now have expanded into hawks and owls. have eagles, falcons, and our most prized possession is vultures. And we're working with vultures around the world, particularly in Africa. I know you've done pretty well in America, saving the Californian condor. And I was lucky enough to see them in California.

and we're doing lots of work like that and just educating people. So I can't remember what the original question was, What am I talking about? Have I answered?

Jonathan Thomas (22:32)
Yeah, you answered the question perfectly. I want to know how it became a tourist attraction and you did it.

Peterv Frost-Pennington (22:35)
right right, okay. Well if you want me to do it shorter I probably could. We became a tourist attraction to make money. And keep the roof on.

Jonathan Thomas (22:42)
No, it makes sense. So we'll talk about the Hawk and Owl Center in a sec, but I wanted to ask you, I was reading about this and found it really interesting. What is the luck of Muncaster?

Peterv Frost-Pennington (22:57)
well that's one of our classic stories. I would like to think the family have survived here because we're maybe good at dealing with change and readapting and that's the great thing about being lived in by, we don't have big committees, we're not a charitable trust or anything, we don't have to get it, we do have various business organizations that help us and external trustees or board members. But.

The luck amongst us is very important story. think it's down to during the Wars of the Roses, I don't know if your audience is aware, but we've had so many civil wars in this country, know, we've always been fighting. And one of the major civil wars was what's now called the Wars of the Roses, which was between two big dynastic families, the House of Lancaster and the House of York. And we are in the Lancastrian area, so we're staunch Lancastrians.

And Henry V, you might have heard of, was the great Lancastrian king who won the Battle of Agincourt in 1415 against the French and really captured most of France for the English crown. And his son, who became Henry VI, was the only man in history to be crowned both King of England and King of France because of the fact his father won the Battle of Agincourt. Unfortunately, Henry VI was not nearly so good a general as his father.

He started, the French started to, this is a vast oversimplification of the Wars of the Roses, but as I understand it, the French started to rise up and fight the English and take back their country from them, and Henry kept losing battles. He married a very warlike wife, lady called Margaret of Anjou, and Margaret was a much better general than Henry was, but that's another story. A bit like my wife.

quite a tiger when fighting. anyway, and so I think some of the nobles got a bit disgruntled that they were starting to lose their nice French wines and cheeses and losing their French territories. So they thought Henry VI was a bit of a numpty and he did have what we call nice or mental health problems and things. So some of the nobles rose up against him, threw him off the throne and put Edward of York, Boo, Hiss upstart on the throne of England. And the war rumbled on for quite some time.

Henry kept losing battles and he went into Scotland, raised another army, came back and in 1464, he lost the Battle of Hexham. Now Hexham is not very far away from here. He fled in one direction, his queen and his son, Prince of Wales, fled in another direction. And so the story goes, Henry VI turned up, dishevelled with only one servant with him, a chap called Sir Richard Tonstell. He had sought shelter at the neighbouring castle.

and they probably quite sensibly said, you're not king anymore and if we take you in, it'll be curtains for us. So they threw him out, would have nothing more to do with him. And he sheltered in the woods and put a curse on that place. And the next day he was found wandering aimlessly on the hills around Muncaster by some shepherds. Now the shepherds brought him into the castle and presented him to Sir John Pennington who lived here. Sir John Pennington was quite an old man, the incumbent. He'd fought with Henry's father.

at the Battle of Agincourt, so I think he was in his 70s or so. So he was a staunch Lancastrian and this was his king, so he took him in, gave him breakfast. We think he sheltered him or hid him here from his foes for two or three weeks as far as we're aware. And the king was so pleased with his reception that when he left, he left saying goodbye and left a blessing, which was a little enamel glass, Venetian glass bowl saying, long as this bowl remains on the Riven.

Pennington's from Muncaster never shall be driven. In other words, as long as you don't break the bow, you'll keep the castle. Now, we're very superstitious here, so we do still have this bow. There's some debate whether it's old enough, but that's another story, but it's certainly ancient. It comes from Murano glass in Venice. It is certainly Henry's prized possession, and it's hidden in the castle. Only the family know where it is.

Jonathan Thomas (26:56)
fascinating.

Peterv Frost-Pennington (27:16)
We very carefully look at it once or twice a year and breathe a sigh of relief. So it's still intact. My son is very clumsy. So I'm dreading the day when I have to hand over the bowl to him in case he drops it. And it's a lovely legend. Henry Low, he was a useless general, was known as Holy King Harry. In fact, there was quite a movement to have him canonized as a saint. In fact, when he left Muncaster, he was eventually captured, carted off the Tower of London.

where he was murdered in 1471 after the of Chooksbury. So I'm sure many of our American friends, if you come to the UK, you'll go to the Tower of London and you can see the spot where Henry VI was murdered, probably by Edward of York, Boo Hiss. But to us he's, and then Henry Tudor came along and all got sorted out after Richard III. So it's well over 500 years old. It's our most prized possession. I'm afraid you can't look at it.

but we do occasionally bring it out for TV cameras and film it and so you'll find it on the internet somewhere. when we break the bowl the government catches up with us and we're out of here. So the luck amongst us. And sorry that was all very long -winded but the luck amongst us, all the luck of the family is in that and it was given to us by Henry VI, Holy King

Jonathan Thomas (28:32)
That's fascinating story. Thank you for sharing that. Hopefully when I come visit, you can show me the bowl.

Peterv Frost-Pennington (28:38)
Well, it's a lovely, it's a living legend and that's what makes this place so special. mean, the UK is full of, you know, with wonderful stories and places and legends. And we haven't started talking about the ghosts yet. We're full of ghosts, but that's another story. But, you know, it's not a ghost story. And whenever I talk about that story, the hairs stand up in the back of my neck and you just feel the presence of Henry the Sixth. We've actually got a lock of his hair in this very room, which

The Tower of London many years ago were doing an important exhibition on famous prisons of the tower and they wanted to borrow the Luck of Muncaster Of course, it's far too important to us that we wouldn't dare put it into their safekeeping and it must never leave the castle. So we said, you can't have that. But we do have a luck of a lock of King Henry the Sixth's hair, allegedly. So we sent it down to Tower of London and you could, I went to see the exhibition. They had a Rudolf Hess's chair next to the lock of King Henry the Sixth's hair. So I thought that was, that was lovely.

Jonathan Thomas (29:34)
Wow. Now speaking of World War II, I was reading that during World War II, many of Britain's national art treasures were kept for safekeeping at Moncastor. Can you tell us more about

Peterv Frost-Pennington (29:47)
Yeah, we've known this story for many, many years, but obviously in World War II there was great panic that the great institutions in London would be bombed in the war, as many of them were. And the Tate Gallery at the time made plans and I think my wife's great -grandfather, Sir John, was so overjoyed when he got the letter from the Tate Gallery saying, do you mind if we send some of our pictures to you for safekeeping? Because he thought the cast would be requisitioned

American GIs with their tanks on the lawn or something who had played darts and fire rifles around the place, or perhaps be taken over by refugees and kids. And so I was very happy that instead of that, we got the contents of the Tate Gallery. And we've had a local gentleman who's done a lot of research on this lately and found a lot more that we didn't know. And I think about six to 800 of the paintings from the Tate Gallery, about a third of them or more came here.

and they included things like Van Gogh sunflowers, which are now back in the National Gallery, I think, and a huge amount of amazing portraits and paintings. And they just came up here. It wasn't top secret, but I met a gentleman who started his working life here in the 1920s as a lowest of the low on the male side, as a whole boy, and he became a joiner, and he was here just when the war started.

And he told me stories about they were asked to go and meet the London train with the estate lorry and they went down and the doors of this train opened. They expected to be offloading refugees and bring them up to castle and all these packing crates were there with their curators and they loaded all these paintings, brought them up here and for the six years of the war they were kept safely in Muncaster Castle away from the German bombs. I think we were bombed once but the bombs missed.

And I think it was quite a culture shock for all these curators who came up with their families from the East End of London and were living here in terrible isolation. But the painting was safe. And the Tate Gallery did get bombed very badly and they would have been destroyed in the war. So it was great when we could send them back. I keep thinking I need to ring up the Tate Gallery one day and ask whether we could maybe have Van Gogh's Sunflowers back again just

Jonathan Thomas (32:12)
Just borrow a couple turners, right?

Peterv Frost-Pennington (32:13)
I think we might have to improve our security. what's... Yeah, there were loads of turners came here and constables and all sorts of things and it's great. So we want to do some more work on that. But yes, you know, a place of sanctuary and defense and it's still doing its role and not they want anything nasty to happen in the world again. But, you know, hey, we're up for looking after the country's treasures again if necessary.

Jonathan Thomas (32:37)
You're the perfect place for it. mean, what better place than a castle, right? What has surprised you most about running a tourist heritage attraction? know, I find the minutiae, I watch those fly on the wall documentaries about famous places in Britain all the time, and I'm always fascinated by how they run a tourist attraction. So it's kind of an inside baseball question, as we would say here. What has surprised you

Peterv Frost-Pennington (32:41)
Exactly.

Well, it's just that you wouldn't believe, I mean, and I'm going to do the same thing now, and there's my wife on the phone, sorry. Can I just say, can we just pause the recording and say, hello, my dear, we're talking about you. I'm doing a live interview with the United States of America in the library at the moment with Jonathan from Anglotopia. So can we talk later? Yeah, what time are going? I have no idea.

Jonathan Thomas (33:13)
Fine. Yeah. Yeah, that's fine.

Peterv Frost-Pennington (33:34)
when this is finished. Soon after six. Josh, better hurry up. Okay. How's our cow? Is she calving? I don't know. haven't been to see yet. All you go and see her and let us know if I need you. All right, bye. Sorry about that Jonathan. What was the question again?

Jonathan Thomas (33:38)
Yeah, about 30 minutes.

No problem. Yeah, let me dial back to the question and then I'll just cut that bit out. So I watch a lot of British fly on the wall documentaries about famous tourist attractions and whatnot. I'm fascinated by how they're run and how they deal with visitors. And so I know this is kind an inside baseball question, as we would say here, but what has surprised you most about running a heritage attraction in the UK?

Peterv Frost-Pennington (34:11)
Well, it's all consuming really. mean, first of all, it is great fun. People ask us that question and ask what you do all day and you sort of go into goldfish mode and go, I'm not sure. But if I told you, you wouldn't believe it. But I mean, we're maybe not quite the same at some places, but in many ways, it's just like being a vet. There's so much things happen here go wrong. I mean, for example, this last weekend, we had a big wedding. We love seeing people come and using it for

something romantic like getting married here. And we love people seeing it as their family home and being the king and queen of the castle. But what people probably don't appreciate is, you know, when we've had some American groups come and I'll be out there in Best Bib and Tucker and doing black ties and chatting and telling them all the tales and legends. And then the toilets block. And before I know it, as happened this wedding, the sewers got blocked and there I was.

finding the drainage rods and putting on the welly boots and overalls and sorting out that kind of thing. So it's the unpredictability of it. And the other thing I find fascinating is no matter what age you are, you're always learning and people make amazing discoveries here. This is a treasury of art and antiques. And you just think how many people have passed through this space and the knowledge of the... And all the time we're having experts coming

and they point out to something which I know you appreciate Jonathan. In fact, I've learned so much from your... because you research so much about that. I love reading your articles and learning so much about Victorian philosophy or something or how the toilet was invented or whatever. And it's brilliant or how banknotes came about and things like that.

We're always learning and what I love is sometimes you open a book and a letter falls out and we get volunteers coming in here and they read up and a lot of it is, know, a like being in the military can be very boring and tedious and then suddenly you get something really exciting. So it's always surprises and I love it when you find something from the past and I'm trying to make sure that when we do any works we leave a newspaper of the time or a bit of a time capsule.

Because when you bring up a floorboard and find someone's signature and beautiful copper plate writing, and I'm just wanting to know more, you sometimes get a name like Joe Pickthall, 1842, and you think, how many guys did he have in his family? And then what did he have for lunch? So it's the constant pursuit of knowledge and getting little fragments of the jigsaw and piecing it together. And you always get surprised. I think.

People's perceptions of places like this are different to the reality and I love it when people come and they find, hey, well hope we're just kind of normal guys, we're just living in extraordinary circumstances and you've just got to make the best of whatever you're looking after in your lives and be kind to people and do unto others you do unto them. And we learn so much from people coming from all over the world and telling us stuff and experts who, so.

It's the learning curve. I'm always learning and I hope I'll be learning till the day I die, except I forget lots of stuff now.

Jonathan Thomas (37:33)
Well, that's an interesting point you bring up. Does it feel like a bit of a fishbowl? Because I know a lot of Americans will visit National Trust properties and those are more museum than home because the families have either left or they don't. If they live there, it's in a small part of it. What is it like as being your family home but also this big tourist attraction?

Peterv Frost-Pennington (37:57)
Well, we personally love it. mean, as can tell, we're probably quite outgoing. We love being sociable. We love talking to people. You know, it's one of the simple... I don't know what happens in the States, but I don't think we're very good in this country. Just trying to get kids to learn, you know, put down your phones and ask people, and you can find out the most amazing things about people. And so we love interacting with people, and we genuinely... And from our point of

You know, we don't have vast investments, know, the farming, agriculture, and this, you know, all the assets have kind of been sold off. So in many ways, not all the assets, we've, the land holding we now have is relatively small. We're looking after all these ancient objects. So we have to go out to raise money by opening the doors and bring people in. But we, you know, I do a fabulous

We're giving people pleasure and the joy of people coming in and appreciating these things, of course, sometimes people come and don't have a clue what they're looking at or understand the craftsmanship, but most people are really appreciative of it. And we just love interacting with people and also it's a living place. know, the National Trust and English Heritage and I'm sure the organization, your country do great works of looking after places like, know, was lucky enough to go to Monticello

Virginia and that was brilliant to see how it's a shrine to people from the past, but it's kind of dead. It doesn't move on, but wonderful about teaching people about that great person who lived there. But what's great about Monkish is we've never really had anyone too special or important living here. And we are the goldfish in the bowl. And sometimes that does get you down a bit, we, well, on the whole, we love it. And if

just warms the cockles of your heart when people come and say they've had a fabulous time here and thank you so much and thank you for sharing with us. So I think if you're doing, there's nothing better than doing a job that you genuinely love doing and I love my job. Just sometimes there's a bit much of it when 10 o 'clock on a Saturday night you realize you've got to go and unlock a sewer. And it's not all glamour and we don't have the vast resources of some of the institutions or what we'd call in the maintenance bank. We obviously have.

Jonathan Thomas (40:05)
you

Peterv Frost-Pennington (40:14)
wonderful staff who do here and very skilled people working here but as one of your presidents said the buck stops here and that's very similar to being a veterinarian you know if you're a vet the phone rings and there's some horrendous when I was a vet you know couldn't now you're the specialist all over the place you couldn't refer a dog with a broken leg you had to fix it yourself and it's very similar at Monk's Day if the problem goes wrong you have to fix it now my son's coming

and going, this is wrong, dad, we need to get experts in and I'm not going to do what you've done. So things will change and evolve. But that's the excitement of the place and the pleasure of discovering something. And I know you enjoy that pleasure of finding out fascinating facts and hilarious history. people haven't changed and society hasn't changed, but it has. And technology and it must have been so exciting.

you know, when the steam railways came and suddenly communications and now we've got the internet and computers and AI or whatever. And I sort of sum it up by saying we have one eye on the, we honor the past, but we're looking to the future if that makes sense. In other words, this isn't a dead place. It's not fossilized. Whether my descendants will be living here in 10, 20, 30 years time,

I have no idea, but I just hope it's welcoming people, they're appreciating what's here and they're enjoying it and we're sharing it with the wider community in the world and looking after it to the best of our abilities because it's a fabulous cornucopia of history and culture and all sorts of other things besides.

Jonathan Thomas (41:59)
Yeah, I would say that it ticks a lot of my interest boxes. British aristocracy, history, architecture, tourist attractions. It's like a little microcosm of the bits of England that I love. I wanted to ask you, you touched on this a little bit earlier, how did you become an important place for hawks and owls? Can you tell us more about

Peterv Frost-Pennington (42:26)
Well, I think always the aristocracy have been trying to do their best for preserving the environment. And interesting, in this country anyway, there's a great movement with the climate emergency and rewilding and things. So we've always had a care for the environment. And an expert came to me many years ago and said, what's so great about Muncaster is it has almost every type of habitat in the UK.

within eight miles of Muncaster. We're on the coast, we have in the coast itself, the beaches, we have the rivers and the intertidal strip. We have a narrow strip of reasonable agricultural land. We have woodland, we have grassland, and then we're going up to Scarfell Piking, the highest mountain. So we have mountains, woodlands, moorland, and the high mountain tops. And so we are very well off for nature,

and wildlife which has been decimating so many other areas. think the only sort of habitat we don't really have is limestone pavements which you get over in Yorkshire way. So we can almost release any animal or insect within eight miles of Muncaster. And we have two red data species that I know of, one a tiny little plant called Touch Me Not Balsam that is the home to a red data species of moth that the

netted carpet moth and I spend a lot of my time at the moment trying to make sure that hangs on. That comes from the prehistoric time where herds of oryx, which were prehistoric cattle, roamed through woodland, paddling up the ground and then moving on. So there's always been a fascination with trying to, I think each generation I hope, tries to leave the world in a better place to how they arrived or at least try and make sure it doesn't

And so we've always had a love of birds. I think when it opened in 1968, my wife's great, my great grandfather, we had a collection of pheasants and birds. had flamingos, we had cirrus cranes, we had guinea fowl, and people loved that. And now we've definitely gone into the, had a local chap came along who was an expert in owls. And in this country,

you know, one particular type of was definitely dying out and we needed to bring the attention of the public to it. So we started looking after British barn owl and flying them and telling that story to people. And so it's an education role. And it's just grown from that to realizing that where habitats are degraded, you know, if you put the habitat back, the wildlife will come back. So it's grown to that and we're now in the most.

We like a challenge and one of the birds we're working with most, which I mentioned before, is the vulture. And we don't actually have vultures in the UK, we have other animals that do that role, like crows and Covid's. But in Africa, example, vultures are dying out for various reasons, but due to poaching and traditional medicine, where people, because vultures have such long, sight and can see...

know, poor vultures. Any other animal is looking for things moving. Vultures have to find dead stuff, which is why they're quite a sociable bird and do the circling and say, hey guys, food down here. And the poach in Africa, poaching elephants and rhinos, they know the vultures will bring the park wardens into where they've poached, maybe catch the poachers. So they poison the carcasses and it's killing loads of vultures. And, you know, if you describe some as a vulture, you know, people don't...

tend to like vultures because some people think they're ugly. We think they're very beautiful. for example, the hooded vulture, Necrocytes monarchus, is on the verge of extinction in Africa. And we have five or six hooded vultures here. We fly them every day. We bring out the fluffy owls and fly them around, and people love them. we fly. We love all our birds that we have here fly free every day, and they fly back because they love us. And it's actually stomach love.

but we're looking after them and we demonstrate how different birds of prey fly in different ways and we're educating people and then we try to make them realize what they can do for whoever you live. Whether you live in a flat in middle of a town or city, you can have a box of pollinating plants on your windowsill and that helps the bees and the insects. And so we're doing a lot of work and we're hoping to do more work in supporting

the Africans, if the vultures die out in an area, vultures do a great job for us as humans because they clear up, their stomach acid is so strong, stronger than battery acid, it can detoxify rabies, botulism, E. coli, it can't deal with modern chemical poisons. And so what happens when vultures die out in areas, something comes in to replace them, and in many sort of areas of the world, what comes in to replace them is wild dogs.

And what do wild dogs carry? Rabies. And if there's one disease I definitely don't want to die of, it's rabies. So we're just trying to raise levels of awareness. We're trying to make people, you know, don't judge a book by the cover. Vultures are wonderful animals that need our help, and we need them. And so it's not just having animals in a zoo for people to come and go up at and go, isn't that wonderful? We try to make sure people...

understand them and love them and help us in the work we're doing as a small piece of working with other people and institutions around the world to protect and preserve our wonderful natural heritage. And it's a great thing to do and see.

Jonathan Thomas (48:13)
Fascinating stuff. Now I wanted to ask and this may have a very long answer or a very short answer is does Muncaster have any American connections?

Peterv Frost-Pennington (48:22)
Thank you.

Yes, well we're on the west coast of Cumbria and just to the north of us is the port of Whitehaven, which I'm sure most of are very well aware that John Paul Jones sailed in in the American War of Independence and spiked the cannons in the harbour and then went to the pub and had a pint or two. So, and John Paul Jones was, I think he was bred just north of here and went over to the States and became, was he your first admiral or something?

So that's just down the road and I think Washington's grandmother is buried in Whitehaven and of course this side of the country did a lot of trade with the Americas and just again in Whitehaven we have a tourist attraction called the Rum Story because of course there was the trade in goods going over the Atlantic and rum and sugar and goods coming back from the Americas and tobacco of course. So we were the

archery, like the Heathrow Airport of the day, Whitehaven would be trading with the Americas. And that's why much of our local Cumbrian cuisine is based on having sugar and spirits like rum from the Caribbean and the Americas. So we have rum butter, for example, which is a delicacy around here. have things using the Cumberland sausages because we had the spices coming in from the Americas.

As in whether Muncaster has any direct links to America. Well, we love having Americans to stay here. And yes, one of the, if you, when we went over to Virginia and we went to Jamestown, and if you haven't been to Jamestown, I'd very much recommend you go. I think it was the first successful English colony to survive in the Americas. And I think three ships sailed in in the early 1600s and dropped 104 poor.

individuals on the side of the swamp and then sailed off back to England. And when I went there, I was fascinated to see all these people are named in the Jamestown Museum and number 26 is John Pennington. So there was a Pennington on the first boat to America and most of these first immigrants came from the southeast corner of England where the money and the power was. But I saw in another part of the Jamestown Museum

Jonathan Thomas (50:39)
that's the name.

Peterv Frost-Pennington (50:53)
there's a list of where all the people came from and I straight away saw number 26 was on the in the middle of Cumbria and I said I bet that's John Pennington and sure enough number 26 I think it was John Pennington so I suspect he was the second son and he knew his older brother or something was going to inherit the castle and hey guys I'm off to the new lands of America to make my fortune I'm not sure he survived that first summer

Jonathan Thomas (51:17)
Ha ha.

dear.

Peterv Frost-Pennington (51:21)
But obviously there's loads of Penningtons in America, and I'm sure many of you listening to this might be Penningtons yourselves, and we love greeting. Normally every month we get two or three Penningtons come over and we think, you they're our cousins. And in fact, when we had this hiccup in the family history in 1917, when the last Lord Muncaster died, he had done a lot of work to try and find his nearest male relative. So technically it came down the female line to my wife's family.

And I think he tracked down that his nearest male relative was an American who was building the Canadian Pacific Railroad at the time. And he was offered the lordship of Moncashire, not necessarily a castle, but he said, hey, I'm in the new lands of America. What do I want with a crumbling English castle? So he turned it down. But so there's quite a few links with America here, just the way we're facing, if nothing else. But yeah, come and see. And we love greeting Americans.

Jonathan Thomas (52:07)
Well, I wouldn't have.

Peterv Frost-Pennington (52:19)
as, you know, come and stay.

Jonathan Thomas (52:23)
Fascinating stuff. Well, I know we're running short on time. So my last question will be you mentioned ghosts. Can you tell us about the ghosts of Muncaster

Peterv Frost-Pennington (52:31)
Jonathan will need a whole new podcast on that. All I'll say is I came here as know, a vet, a supposed scientist, I came here thinking, in fact when I came here and I heard all the stories that my parents -in -law used to tell, I used to think, they've made all this up for the tourists. What fascinates me is so many times the research I've done, I've yet to find amongst the story that has

blown apart by the research and normally it backs it up. As my father used to say, we have three ghosts and we're working the fourth because they're good for business. But so it's a very strange place and odd things happen here. If you believe in ghosts, it's hooching with ghosts. If you're maybe more level -headed and think it's nothing to do with ghosts, there's an awful lot of weird coincidences that happen here. But we have a crying child in the bedroom, that's ghost number one. We have a white lady who wants the outside, that's Mary Bragg, and we know quite a lot about her.

but our big ghost is Thomas Skelton, the Fool of Muncaster And I hope you're all aware that there's the expression in English, Tom Foolery and Stop Playing the Tom Fool, and the original Tom Fool lived here. But I'm afraid if we're running out of time, that needs a whole new podcast. But we've learned off our American cousins, we love your Halloween festivals and you know, Halloween is going to be our biggest event of the year. We do

ghost tours of the castle and we now sort of love entertaining people. They love being scared and they love hamming it up. My wife tends to do the scary stuff and in the castle we now do fun things for the kids. Last year we'd run through all our monks to ghost stories and last year we Frankenstein. So in this very room became Frankenstein's laboratory. I ended up being Frankenstein's monster and getting beaten up. This year in 2024 it's going to be Dracula.

come this October and I think I've got the starring role of Dracula. And we just love having fun and using this beautiful environment to entertain, enchant and educate and give people a right enjoyable day out or just you know to go away feeling a bit better about themselves in the world we hope and that's my task in life.

Jonathan Thomas (54:51)
Well, thank you so much for coming on the Angle Topia podcast and sharing your wonderful castle with us. And I know that I'm definitely going to have to come back and I encourage all Angle Topia podcast listeners to make the trip up to Cumbria and visit Longaster Castle. You will not be disappointed. So thank you so much for your time, Peter.

Peterv Frost-Pennington (55:11)
It's a pleasure, Jonathan, and keep up the good work. I love it. I wish I more time to sit down and read your articles.

Jonathan Thomas (55:16)
Thank you for reading, I really appreciate it. So, thank you.

Peterv Frost-Pennington (55:20)
Bye.