Rhyl hotel's fireplace is actually a Royal bed!

[Neil]

Courtesy of BBC online 21syt November 2010.

A carved wooden fireplace in a Rhyl hotel may have royal connections. Guests who admire the carved fireplace at a Rhyl hotel will be unaware of its royal connections.
The wooden fireplace surround in the hall of Barratt's of Tyn Rhyl is thought to be made from the bedstead used by Henry VIII and his first wife, Catherine of Aragon.

The hotel, thought to be the oldest house in Rhyl, once belonged to writer Angharad Llwyd who lived there in the 1800s.

Her ancestor, Pierce Griffith, was Sergeant at Arms to King Henry VIII and usher to Catherine of Aragon.

David and Elvira Barratt have run the restaurant and hotel for 20 years and Ms Barratt said she understood the bedstead had been passed down through Pierce Griffith's family.

"I found it unbelievable when I first heard about it," she said. "Why would Catherine of Aragon's bedstead be in Rhyl?

"But once we understood a bit more about the history, I suppose it is like anything. We have things from our parents and they had things from their parents and, slowly, things make their way down."
 
Another feature of the fireplace is a marble panel featuring a picture of a bird which a valuer has told the Barratts is made of either Roman or Florentine marble.

Mr Barratt said a valuer had also confirmed that the woodwork dated from the relevant period though there is no definite proof it belonged to the Tudor monarch.

"But we have no reason to disbelieve it," he said.

Henry VIII married Catherine of Aragon in 1509. She bore him six children but only one, a daughter, Mary, survived.

Her failure to produce a male heir led to Henry's desire to divorce her which was one of the factors that led to the English Reformation.