Join me for a visit to Portmeirion in North Wales, the extraordinary village created by architect Sir Clough Williams-Ellis from the 1920s onwards.
In this video we explore the colourful buildings, gardens, terraces and waterfront setting, as well as the story behind Williams-Ellis’s vision of creating architecture that worked with the landscape rather than against it.
I also look at Portmeirion’s famous connection with the cult 1960s television series The Prisoner, including the unusual Rover balloon, and the story of Susan Williams-Ellis, whose pottery designs went on to become known around the world.
The video includes ground footage throughout the village, distant aerial views from the shoreline showing Portmeirion against the Dwyryd Estuary and the mountains of Eryri, and a number of artistic historical reconstructions to help bring parts of the story to life.
Please note: some historical scenes shown in the video are AI-assisted artistic reconstructions and are included for illustrative purposes only.
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@PitchFader Been there more times than I can recall, Rich. Going back to my teens, nearly 50 years ago!! Remember watching the Prisoner, and Danger Man before it, when they both came out!! Lovely place though I agree.
Love Portmerion, though remember being totally confused by the switch from Danger Man to the Prisoner, I must have missed a couple of episodes at the end of Dangerman and thought the Prisoner was the same series! At the time spent a lot of time travelling around the country climbing. Particularly loved Tremadog, which is nearby, south facing so catches the sun and at the time (don’t know if it’s still there), a great cafe. Our club had a hut/bothy in Cwm Penant, loved the place, absolutely magical. Was given over to the bothy association in 2015, a sad loss to the club.
We’d often set off from Leeds on a Friday evening for llanberis and find the weather atrocious so continue down twds tremadog, where the sun always shines, and staying in that fantastic hut, tramping across the moor in pitch darkness after spending the evening in the pub and lighting a fire using peat we’d dug previously.
@Seadog Sounds like a great way to spend some time in the mountains. Stayed in a static caravan a couple of times in Tremadog owned by some guys I worked with in the late 70s, early 80s.
As far as I can recall, the 2 series were never connected from a storyline point of view but it was an obvious association given the job description of the main character in both of them.
