● Edmund Bailey with HRH Princess Anne in 2015

A FARMER has been appointed Constable of Caernarfon Castle by the Queen.

Edmund Bailey, who has been the Lord Lieutenant of Gwynedd since 2014, will succeed the late Lord Snowdon.

A farmer with business interests in tourism and renewable energy, he has previously served as president of NFU Cymru, as a member of the Lord Chancellor’s Agricultural Land Tribunal and as High Sheriff of Gwynedd.

He lives in Llanbedr and farms on his family’s extensive holding in South Snowdonia.

A widower, whose late wife Helen died in 2010, he has two children, chartered surveyor Ed Bailey and Harlech nurse Sarah Matthews.

In what is largely a ceremonial role, Mr Bailey will be expected to welcome members of the royal family and other VIP guests during visits to the castle.

He said: “It’s a tremendous honour to be given this opportunity and one that I never expected.

“I was asked if I’d be willing to let my name go forward and I thought little more of it until I heard that I had been accepted.

“Over recent years I’ve done a lot of work in Caernarfon as part of my High Sheriff duties, which has allowed me to fully appreciate what a splendid town it is.”

Mr Bailey’s dad, Eddie, left school at 13 and later bought a farm near Manchester, but was forced to sell it soon after at a loss when it was compulsorily purchased. He then went on to rent Gors y Gedol at Llanbedr, near Harlech.

Three years later Edmund was born and, in 1962, the family bought the farm outright.

Eddie died in late 2008 but his legacy lives on: a 2,800-acre hill unit, farmed as a single unit, which accommodates 2,000 Welsh Mountain ewes and 100 sucklers, mostly Welsh Black.

Mr Bailey’s predecessor, Lord Snowdon, born Antony Armstrong-Jones, was a celebrity photographer and former husband of Princess Margaret.

He was laid to rest in a secluded spot overlooking the Menai Strait in Llanfaglan near Caernarfon in January of last year.

The Eton-educated photographer took portraits of the most famous faces of the 20th Century, from Diana, Princess of Wales to Jack Nicholson and Elizabeth Taylor, in a career that lasted more than six decades.

But it was his marriage to the Queen’s sister Princess Margaret in 1960, a union that ended in divorce 18 years later, for which he is remembered.