The Fantasy Village of Portmeirion

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In the unlikely setting of the coast of Wales, Clough Williams-Ellis created his vision of an Italianate village, complete with watchtower, grottos, a lighthouse, and a castle.

Until you have stood on the vast camel-coloured sands of the Dwyryd River estuary, where it starts to curl into the waters of Tremadog Bay, and gazed at a sweetshop confection of shocking-pink and turquoise cottages, lemon-yellow turrets and terra cotta and dove-grey roofs, you cannot really say that you have’seen the complete Wales’ — even though the most recognizably Welsh things about the village of Portmeirion are the names of the place and of the man who dreamt it all up and saw it through.

It is almost 70 years since architect and new-town planner Clough Williams-Ellis came upon the overgrown headland of Aberia, at the head of the Porthmadog Bay in Meirionethshire. Covered in ancient trees and exotic shrubs, it seemed to Sir Clough almost too good to be true.

While serving in the army during World War I, Sir Clough had refined in his mind an idea he had since childhood. ‘I had to dream of something other than the horror, destruction and savagery’ of the war, he later remembered. His vision was of building an entire village set in a remote and tranquil setting and designed solely according to his own whims.

In the years following the war, this keen yachtsman combed offshore islands in search of a site on which to create his idyll, but he knew in his heart that the cost of transporting building materials to an island would be prohibitive. When he discovered the little-known Welsh peninsula of Aberia, he immediately recognized that it was a much more practical alternative. The name of the place, however, did not sound very Welsh, so he changed it to Portmeirion, rolled up his sleeves and, in 1925, got down to his life’s work.

What a life it was. Sir Clough lived until 1978 when he was 95, and saw Portmeirion completed in 1973. It has changed little, except that the seaside-blue and white wedding cake hotel by the water’s edge has risen phoenix-like and increased sumptuousness from the ashes of a near-disastrous fire in 1981, and that several of the cottages in the village are now available for holiday lets. In one of these cottages, perched on the very edge of the village and overlooking the estuary, whose sands can sometimes be covered by the tide in 15 minutes, Noel Coward wrote ‘Blithe Spirit.’

Putting your own interpretation on Portmeirion is as much a part of a visit as browsing for Portmeirion pottery in the village shops. During my last visit to Portmeirion, as I followed people threading their way in and out of Georgian-styled colonnades, up flights of stone steps and down flights of fancy, peering into a goldfish pond, chuckling at all the trompe l’oeil, and resting in the shadow of the bell tower, I heard one say, ‘Of course, you know it’s not to be taken seriously.’

Sir Cough wanted to bestow a Mediterranean flavour on Portmeirion, which he partly conveyed by yew trees masquerading as cypresses. But the architect also delighted in incongruity. Where in Umbria would you find a giant Buddha under the shade of a pantiled loggia; where in Tuscany that so-English box tree topiary silhouetted against a yellow-ochre façade that’s not quite the substantial house it seems?

One important impression of what Portmeirion is all about comes from Clough Williams-Ellis himself. The flamboyant architect, who liked to dress in knee breeches, large bow tie and yellow stockings, wrote a visitor guidebook to the village and provided the commentary that accompanies a video film made from still pictures of Portmeirion at its most romantic.

The film is shown every 20 minutes in a miniature cinema only yards from the village’s colonnade. In it, Sir Clough tells how he became the man that local authorities or stately home owners would send for if they had decaying old structures they wanted removed. This reputation for collecting old buildings began when he heard that Emral Hall, in Flintshire, was scheduled for demolition. Sir Clough purchased much of the furnishings, including the sculpted ceiling of the ballroom, which depicts the adventures of Hercules, and brought it to Portmeirion where it was reconstructed to become the ‘town hall.’

Tags: British Heritage, Social History

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