Where the Italian Riviera Meets the Welsh Wild: Portmeirion

“Portmeirion is a gay, deliberately irresponsible reaction against the dull sterilities of so much that passes as modern architecture today [...] it is prompted by [the] impulse [...] to reclaim for architecture the freedom of invention - and the possibility of pleasurable fantasy - it had too abjectly surrendered to the cult of the machine.” 

-Lewis Mumford, The Highway and the City (1946).

Portmeirion was a village built to be enjoyed, a meandering ode for the eyes, so let your eyes meander; let yourself enjoy. The town itself is composed primarily of five constituent parts. The Gatehouse is the portal to this fantasia, built in a style situated primarily in Welsh vernacular - its bucolic chimney and tiled-slate roof, the Welsh dragon in portraiture above the gateway entrance - but which romantically gestures towards the Italianate beyond it. So, the aforementioned dragon appears in Botticellian tondo, and the Gatehouse’s pastel-pink facade and cliffside synthesis evoke powerfully the seafronts of Portofino and its Riviera contemporaries.

Battery Square awaits a little beyond the Gatehouse and secludes some of the town’s key spots: the Round House, where tortured protagonist Number Six was confined in the surrealist spy drama The Prison that made Portmeirion famous back when it first aired in the 1960s’ summer of love; and Hercules Hall, built from the salvaged 17th-century plasterwork of a demolished stately home depicting the titular hero’s legendary Twelve Labours. William-Ellis would later describe Portmeirion as his “home for fallen buildings”.

Continue and you will come to the Piazza, the town’s ornamental heart populated by exotic palms and gem-like rhododendrons. A Grecian-Italian terrace and statue of Hercules round off the area’s residents in poetic continuation with Williams-Ellis’ classical iconography, while a human-sized chess board pays homage to an episode of The Prison in which Six is made the pawn in a living-chess game.

Finally descend to The Quay, overlooking the Dwyryd estuary and its sandy beaches along which the town was built. Its centrepiece is the Portmeirion Hotel, developed by Williams-Ellis from the bones of a 19th-century private estate and which has welcomed the likes of Frank Lloyd Wright, Ingrid Bergman, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison. Noel Coward wrote his campy smash-hit comedy Blithe Spirit while staying in its Upper Fountain Suite in 1941.

The Quay also features a grassy outcrop in which lies in a small heated pool open to its guests during summer months and the Amis Reunis, a concrete folly shipwreck erected in memory of a genuine ship Williams-Ellis installed in the estuary as accommodation, but which was capsized during a winter’s storm.

The Quay will finally lead to the Clifftop & Grotto, a small network of coastal pathways weaving in and out of the adjoining cliff-face with pleasant views over the estuary and the quayside. Follow these footpaths to be whisked to yet another world-within-a-world known as The Gwyllt, the Welsh word for ‘wild’ or ‘untamed’. These are the 20 miles of path and 70 acres of woodland that back Portmeirion, gardened by a circle of Williams-Ellis’ friends to cultivate a sense of heterotopia. It is rich in exotic flora, camellias, rhododendrons, azaleas, magnolia, and maidenhair trees sourced from distant Himalayan foothills, and a Chinese lake folie that evokes the eighteenth-century Baroque cult of Chinoiserie. Dominic Wells reports that Sir William Fothergill Cooke, one of Williams-Ellis’ woodland collaborators and co-inventor of the telegraph, was rendered “so impoverished himself in the task of planting [the Gwyllt] that he had to hide from bailiffs in the catacombs under the hotel, fed by his loyal butler through a trap door under the pantry sink”. Indulge in the fruits of this epic labour, either on-foot or aboard the novelty Forest Train that embark through the Gwyllt out of Battery Square at no additional cost.

Portmeirion has two full-service restaurants and a handful of cafes open to visitors should you so desire. The Hotel Portmeirion serves a quintessential afternoon tea on its terrasse from Monday to Saturday for those fancying a light bite, or a decadent Sunday roast in its main hall on Sundays. Castell Deudraeth, meanwhile, has a more contemporary brasserie lounge and bar nearby in the Gwyllt for more substantial meals. Back into town, Angel Ices Gelateria scoops Italian-inspired ice creams to match the Italian-inspired architecture on Battery Square, the Town Hall houses a 1950s-style cafe and eatery, and Caffi’r Ddraig serves a range of street food options onto a Mediterranean terrace.

Alongside its gastronomic selection, several special souvenirs can be purchased at Portmeirion to keep a piece of this magical village with you well after you leave. Inside the Round House is the Prisoner Gift Shop, the perfect (and only!) place to buy all things Prisoner for fanatics of the show, from badges to the iconic black blazer worn by Patrick McGoohan on the show. The Seconds Shop sells Portmeirion Pottery at special discount prices, a bespoke tableware brand founded by Sir Clough Williams-Ellis’ daughter Susan out of the famous Northern pottery town Stoke-on-Trent in 1960. The brand has since become so iconic that it was the subject of a 2019 retrospective at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum.

Lastly, the Rob Piercy Gallery sells a selection of watercolours, prints, and greeting cards by the local artist on Battery Square. Piercy, a member of the Royal Cambrian Academy and the Watercolour Society of Wales, has been so inspired by the village that he released a book of his watercolour paintings of it, Portmeirion: A Perspective Which Spans Several Decades, in 2012; many of these prints are available for sale at the shop.

The answer is obvious, the Portmeirion Hotel. Comprising the main hotel complex which consists of fourteen bedrooms as well as various of the village’s Italianate cottages and the eleven rooms in Castell Deudraeth, a Gothic manor home located on the estate restored and renovated in 2001. Each offers a unique ambiance, however each also offers full access to the resort’s amenities: the outdoor swimming pool on The Quay, relaxation at the Mermaid Spa, and breakfast, lunch, and dinner options at the various above-mentioned eateries and restaurants. Plus, booking a room will guarantee you full out-of-hours access to Portmeirion Village once its gates close to the usual tourist quagmire, turning Williams-Ellis’ dreamscape into your own personal playground.