Woolly says – We had set off early dropping Alfie the Dog off at Doggie Playgroup before heading into the Snowdonia National Park where instead of the weak winter sunshine we were met by low clouds, dark skies and rain, I sighed, it looked like another day of getting wet and Jo moaning about the cold. It was however my Burpday so I wasn’t going to let a bit of wet stuff spoil the celebration.
We were headed to a place that we had last visited in March 2013 and the weather hadn’t been much better then. Pulling into the parking we added some layers in the interests of keeping warm and headed into the unique village of Portmeirion.
Portmeirion in Gwynedd, North Wales was designed and built by Sir Clough Williams-Ellis between 1925 and 1975 in the style of an Italian village using fragments from demolished buildings and new construction, it is said to have influenced the development of postmodernism in architecture in the late 20th century. It is now owned and run by a charitable trust.
The bright and colourful buildings started as soon as we entered the private estate with its pink entrance and lovely fresco lining it’s roof it is easy to see why the place has been a source of inspiration for writers and television producers. Noël Coward wrote Blithe Spirit while staying, George Bernard Shaw and H. G. Wells were also early visitors. In 1956 the architect Frank Lloyd Wright came and other famous guests included Gregory Peck and Ingrid Bergman. The village has many connections to the Beatles. Their manager Brian Epstein was a frequent visitor, along with Paul McCartney, and George Harrison who spent his 50th birthday there in 1993.
As we passed the bust of Patrick McGoohan the actor who played the prisoner and became one of the most famous inhabitants, I couldn’t resist muttering ‘I am not a number, I am a free Mammoth’, my carer who was a big fan of the show chuckled.
In 1966–1967, Patrick McGoohan filmed the 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. 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 locations used in The Prisoner are virtually unchanged after more than 50 years.
We climbed up towards the large domed building to take in the views of the estuary and across the village, access is limited as many of the buildings are holiday lets but it gave a wonderful vista across the whole place.
With pinks, blues and yellows making even a grey day look colourful we wandered towards the harbour passing the most impressive Town Hall before finding ourselves looking across the water with its rather unsightly bubbles, maybe the large bubble that had once chased McGoohan had been replaced by many smaller ones, I decided to err on caution and not go to near them.
The pristine whiteness of the harbour and its stationary boat show how well maintained the place is with work currently being carried out on the lighthouse to bring it up to the same standard.
A small café drew us in for hot drinks and cakes which gave us time to dry off before setting off into the woodlands. The grounds contain an important collection of rhododendrons and other exotic plants in a wild garden setting, which was begun before Williams-Ellis’s time by the previous owner George Henry Caton Haigh and has continued to be developed since Williams-Ellis’s death. As we climbed up the path glimpsing views of the village it seemed as shame that dogs weren’t allowed because the panting beast would have loved this. Huge trees lined our route and the remains of an old castle with its cannon gave us a chance to catch our breath before continuing.
The more unusual plants were labelled which was great as neither myself nor my carer are very good at that sort of thing. A small pond filled with lilies and a selection of sweet wooden animals lined the footpath.
As we moved deeper and deeper into the woods we arrived at a dog cemetery, Jo and I looked at each of the carefully marked graves of pooches that had once given so much love.
It was quite a sombre place and made me hope that Alfie the Dog would have many more years of chasing squirrels before the need to find him somewhere like this.
The path got steeper and we appeared to be walking in a stream bed with a sheer cliff to our left and dense vegetation to our right, it suddenly occurred to me that we might be lost, so I was very grateful to bump into a couple arriving from a different path that pointed us back towards the village.
Arriving back into the colourful space of the village centre we admired the giant chessboard that became famous from the filming of the prisoner and the Italian architecture that surrounded it, a large column provided a base for Hercules who looked out over the estuary and towards Harlech Castle.
Golden dancing girls topped two high posts with the impressive Gothic Pavilion providing shelter from the rain. A small set of steps led us to a seated Buddha which seemed slightly out of context with everything surrounding it and I had to wonder if this had been a late addition to the village.
We took a final look at the area where Number 6 had once resided in the show which was now a shop selling all things Prisoner, I looked around in the hope of finding a badge saving ‘I am not a number I am a free mammoth’ but sadly they haven’t caught on to how popular a souvenir like that would be.
A wonderful place if only we could get one visit where we didn’t freeze and get soaked, with rumbling tums we headed to the warmth of the car and the promise of a Burpday lunch fit for a mammoth.