Return to Portmeirion...

Every few years or so I get the urge to visit Portmeirion. I’ve been three or four times and each time I go I’m surprised by how something so higgledy-piggledy and architecturally disjointed can be so pleasing to the eye. I think that the bright colours of the painted buildings help and the terracing of buildings that Clough Williams Ellis decided upon adds interest and drama.

There’s no doubt that the place is certainly not typical of a Welsh village or any village anywhere come to that. It’s made up of bits and pieces from all over the place – France to China, Ancient Greece to Aberdeen - although most of it could be described as Italianate.

Clough Williams Ellis, the designer and builder of Portmeirion picked up bits and pieces everywhere and Portmeirion is full of found and donated ‘bits’ of other buildings. What C.W.E. couldn’t beg, steal or borrow he mocked up, and much of the village is more film set than solid.

Perhaps that’s what I like about the place. It’s real but it isn’t real at all. Many of the buildings were shells until fairly recently and some bits of it are made out of painted hardboard. It’s a place out of place, although it sits very comfortably in the landscape.

There’s more than a touch of the surreal around Portmerrion. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see Salvador Dali pop out from behind the Watch Tower one evening brandishing a lobster, twirling his mustache and declaring that he 'iz ze Dali!'

Now that would be a dream come true.