'Wynnstay Theatre.' Engraving and etching published in European Magazine, published by J Sewell, 1786.

Upper image: a plinth with urn overshadowed by a tree to left; on the left of the plinth sits a woman holding playbill for Richard III and on the right a grinning man holding playbill for 'Rule a Wife and Have a Wife', the whole enclosed in a roundel. Lower image: Against a mountainous background, Punch wearing 18th century coat and hat, stands beneath a signpost to Wynnstay, holding playbills for 'The Constant Couple' and 'Spanish Barber', and 'Cymbeline' and 'The Devil upon two Sticks', watched by a ram at the right edge .

Cyril W. Beaumont Bequest

Private theatricals at Wynnstay in Denbighshire were established by Sir Watkin Williams Wynn, a country squire of taste and culture and friend of Sir Joshua Reynolds. They were the longest lasting private theatricals of the period; Sir Watkin, the 4th baronet, established them in 1770 in a building originally constructed as a kitchen for his 21st birthday celebrations that year, and they ceased with his death in 1787. In that time, 25 plays and 24 afterpieces were presented, including 14 Shakespeare plays and adaptations - covering tragedy, farce, comic opera, pantomime, comedy and burlesque. The 5th baronet reestablished them on a smaller scale between 1803 and 1810. Most amateur theatricals of the period were aristocratic in tone and audience, but Wynnstay was more a country house atmosphere, with audience and players drawn from tradesmen, neighbours and servants as well as specially invited performers. Garrick visited Wynnstay in 1777 but could not be persuaded to perform.

S.353-2000