Portmeirion

Portmeirion (/pɔːtˈmeriən/; Welsh pronunciation: [pɔrtˈmei̯rjɔn]) is a folly tourist village in Gwynedd (historically in Meirionnydd), north Wales. It was designed and built by Sir Clough Williams-Ellis between 1925 and 1975 in the Baroque style and is now owned by a charitable trust. The village is located in the Penrhyndeudraeth community, on the River Dwyryd estuary, 2 miles (3.2 km) southeast of Porthmadog and 1 mile (1.6 km) from Minffordd railway station. Portmeirion has been the location for numerous films and television shows, most famously as “The Village” in the 1960s television show The Prisoner.

Many of the buildings within the village are listed by Cadw, the Welsh Historic Environment Service, for their architectural and historical importance, and the gardens are listed, at Grade II*, on the Cadw/ICOMOS Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales.

Architecture critic Lewis Mumford devoted a large part of a chapter of his 1964 book The Highway and the City to Portmeirion, which he called:

an artful and playful little modern village, designed as a whole and all of a piece … a fantastic collection of architectural relics and impish modern fantasies. … As an architect, [Williams-Ellis] is equally at home in the ancient, traditional world of the stark Welsh countryside and the once brave new world of “modern architecture.” But he realized earlier than most of his architectural contemporaries how constricted and desiccated modern forms can become when the architect pays more attention to the mechanical formula or the exploitation of some newly fabricated material than to the visible human results. In a sense, 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.

Mumford referred to the architecture as romantic and picturesque in Baroque form, “with tongue in cheek.” He described the total effect as “relaxing and often enchanting” with “playful absurdities” that are “delicate and human in touch”, making the village a “happy relief” from the “rigid irrationalities and the calculated follies” of the modern world.

The houses Anchor, Arches, the hotel building, Lady’s Lodge, the inside of the Pantheon and the vaulted ceiling of Gate House are decorated with murals and frescoes by the Frankfurt-born artist and friend of Clough Williams-Ellis Hans Feibusch.

Portmeirion Town Hall is a grade I listed building, incorporating stonework and the Hercules Hall from the demolished Emral Hall in Flintshire.[10] Many other buildings and structures within the village have their listings.

The Prisoner:

In 1966–1967, Patrick McGoohan returned to Portmeirion to film exteriors for The Prisoner, a surreal spy drama in which Portmeirion played a starring role as “The Village”, in which McGoohan’s retired intelligence agent, known only as “Number 6”, was incarcerated and interrogated, albeit in pleasant surroundings. At Williams-Ellis’ request, Portmeirion was not identified on screen as the filming location until the credits of the final episode of the series, and indeed, Williams-Ellis stated that the levy of an entrance fee was a deliberate ploy to prevent the Village from being spoilt by overcrowding. The show, broadcast on ITV in the UK during the winter of 1967-68 and CBS in the US in the summer of 1968 became a cult classic, and fans continue to visit Portmeirion, which hosts annual Prisoner fan conventions.

The building that was used as the lead character’s home in the series was used as a Prisoner-themed souvenir shop. Many of the locations used in The Prisoner are virtually unchanged after more than 50 years, and a large outdoor chess board was installed in 2016 in homage to its appearance in the series.