Portmeirion
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Portmeirion is an Italianate resort village on the coast of Snowdonia in Wales. It has served as a location for many films and television shows, notably The Prisoner. Despite repeated claims that it was based on the real town of Portofino, Italy, Sir Clough Williams-Ellis, Portmeirion's designer, denied this, stating only that he wanted to pay tribute to the atmosphere of the Mediterranean.
The village is located two miles east of Porthmadog at the entrance to the Lleyn Peninsula, and one mile from the Minffordd station serving both the Ffestiniog Railway (narrow gauge steam) and Arriva Trains Wales.
Williams-Ellis designed and constructed the village between 1925 and 1975. He incorporated fragments of demolished buildings, including works by a number of other distinguished architects. Portmeirion's architectural bricolage and deliberately fanciful nostalgia have been noted as an influence on the development of postmodernism in architecture in the late twentieth century.
The main building of the hotel, and the cottages called "White Horses", "Mermaid" and "The Salutation" had been a private estate called Aber Ia, developed in the 1850s, itself on the site of a foundry and boatyard which was active in the late 18th century. The site (and very minor remains) of a mediaeval castle (known variously as Castell Deudraeth, Castell Gwain Goch and Castell Aber Iau) are in the woods just outside the village proper, recorded by Giraldus Cambrensis (Gerald of Wales) in 1188.
The grounds contain an important collection of rhododendrons and other exotic plants in a wild-garden setting which was begun before Williams-Ellis' time and has continued to be developed since his death.
Portmeirion is now owned by a charitable trust, and has always been run as a hotel, which uses the majority of the buildings as hotel rooms or self-catering cottages, together with various shops, a cafe, tea-room and restaurant. Day visits can be made on payment of an admission charge.
Noel Coward wrote Blithe Spirit while staying in the Fountain 2 (Upper Fountain) suite at Portmeirion.
External links
- [Official Portmeirion website]
- ["Virtual Portmeirion" website]
- [Many photographs of Portmeirion]
- [The Unmutual Prisoner & Portmeirion website]
- *[Map sources] for Portmeirion
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