Friday 18 April 2014

P is for Portmeirion








A – Z OF THE UNITED KINGDOM

P is for Portmeirion


 
Today we travel to North Wales 

To

Portmeirion, Gwynedd



View of the Central Plaza

Portmeirion is a popular tourist village in Gwynedd, North Wales. It was designed and built by Sir Clough Williams-Ellis between 1925 – 1975 in the style of an Italian village.  It is now owned by a charitable trust. 



Portmeirion’s designer, Sir Clough Williams-Ellis drew on his love of an Italian village and 1925 – 1975 he incorporated fragments of demolished buildings, including works by a number of other architects.  The architectural bricolage and deliberately fanciful nostalgia have been noted as an influence on the development of post modernism in architecture in the late 20th century. 

Clough Williams-Ellis



Battery square in Portmeirion. Author: Chris Jones
http://northwalestoday.com/portmeirion.html


 


View of Castell Deudraeth near Portmeirion. Author: Chris Jones





In 1931 Williams-Ellis bought from his uncle, Sir Osmund Williams, BT, , the Victorian crenellated mansion Castell Deudraeth with the intention of incorporating it into the Portmeirion hotel complex but the intervention of the war and other problems prevented this. 

Williams-Ellis had always considered the Castell to be “the largest and most imposing single building on the Portmeirion Estate" and sought ways to incorporate it. Eventually, with support from the Heritage Lottery Fund and the European Regional Development Fund as well as the  Wales Tourist Board,  his original aims were achieved and Castell Deudraeth was opened as an 11 bedroom hotel and restaurant on August 20, 2001 by Welsh opera singer Bryn Terfel.

The iconic 1960’s television show The Prisoner used Portmeirion as its location for “The Village.”




The Prisoner

I am not a number. I am a free man
Patrick McGoohan not only starred as Number Six, the leading role in The Prisoner, he was also the creator and driving force behind the 17 episode series. The series was financed by ITC Entertainment with David Tomblin as the Producer and George Markstein as script editor.






A romantic get-a-way

 A long weekend including Monday

Recharge the batteries 

I do hope she agrees

I need to say sorry

Take away the worry

She is the love of my life

I’ll ask her to be my wife

A grand room in Castell Deudraeth

A lift so she won’t be out of breath

As we enter the penthouse suite

Champagne on the patio, we gaze at the street


The ring is offered up to my sweetheart 

She accepts; we will never be apart.

 

2 comments:

  1. Portmeirion sounds like a charming village. Thanks for taking me there. Have a great week end.

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  2. What interesting history of the village. The colorful facades do look very Italian.
    (And by the way, here's another weird thing with Blogger: your K post just arrived, and when I clicked on it, it took me to MY dashboard. What's up with that??? Oh, and I didn't get anything between D and K either, just those 2.)

    Wendy at Jollett Etc.

    ReplyDelete