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The wide High Street and connecting terraces were laid out for David Williams of Castell Deudraeth (Portmeirion).
S N P A O, Trem-yr-wyddfa. , by Gwynedd County Architects, project architect Dylan Roberts. A longish curved building overlooking a lake. Trefor granite with limestone dressings, stained timber windows, slate roofs – local materials de rigueur for a planning authority. Five linked blocks step up, two each side of the entrance atrium. After the hard entrance face, the sunny lake façade is softer, more glazed, the roofs cascading to almost head height. Much timber inside; particularly big laminated roof beams. M, of the church. , by Clough Williams-Ellis. Stuccoed villa, with single-storey surgery attached. The approach, through a gateway and past the six-window surgery, leads to a Palladian loggia in the end wall. Neo-Georgian front of –– bays, with a shallow pedimental gable and, under the hipped ends, bedroom balconies over the loggias. Sash windows. M--, ½ m. . . An early work by Griffith Morris of Porthmadog for C. F. Cooke of Cooke’s Explosives. Smallish stone villa. L-plan with half-hipped gables, the roof slid down over the porch in the angle. The gable to the l. has the recessed bay window of the contemporary Caernarvonshire ‘open-air’ schools and other Morris houses. T̂ O, ½ m. . Early to mid- end-chimney house, the three bays offset. Big blocked fireplace and mural stair with window. T-plan farm buildings, to , to the , with gable dove holes.
B B C , Penlan Isaf. . Pebbledash with brown terracotta. Gabled buttresses flank a broad Perp central window. Outer turrets with octagonal finials. Raised up over the schoolroom. C I C , School Street. Now a house. –, probably by the Rev. Thomas Thomas, altered –. Rock-faced granite with slight limestone dressings. The impost of the giant arch connects all the window imposts – tall slim outer ones and a Palladian triplet. G C M C , on the A road. , by Richard Owens, similar to his Tabernacle, Aberystwyth, –, but better articulated and more consistently Italian. Projecting pedimented centre, balustraded outer bays. The centre has triple arched windows and angle piers above, broad corniced doorcase and quoins below. The outer bays repeat on the sides for greater effect. H T . , by T. M. Penson, for Louisa Oakeley of Tan-y-bwlch (Maentwrog). Nave and chancel; cusped lancets and a slim octagonal spired turret over a spherical-triangle window. The surprisingly large porch has ballflower decoration and shafts with foliage capitals. – . window, s, stiff drawing, St Paul at Athens. Two lancets, , one by Powells, the one possibly by Jones & Willis. N C M C , Nazareth Terrace. , remodelled in – by Richard Owens. A long-wall front given an imposing Italianate façade in rockfaced rubble and ashlar. Three bays, each with a pair of Florentine windows. Balustraded parapet with urns, solid to the centre with the name in big letters. Heavy corniced porches with square pillars. , r., with canted bays flanking a latticed porch. T W C , High Street. . Dark rubble with orangey sandstone. Giant arch and pilasters, suggesting the Rev. Thomas Thomas. The pilasters are thin channelled strips with urns on the outer shoulders. C C S , School Street. , by Deakin & Howard Jones. Stone with typical orange terracotta. Five bays. Three gables project with big windows, the central one Palladian, the others arched; the intermediate windows rectangular, with a gablet over just the middle light. N S , on the A road. , by Thomas Roberts of Porthmadog. Single-storey with a busy roof-line; slated central lantern, half-hipped roof pushed out at one end over the bell and a big arched window. Buttressed front with pairs of pointed windows. Now a house. , of the church. , perhaps by T. M. Penson. Rubble with slate lintels and hoodmoulds. The gable has a narrow two-storey bay with deep-mullioned lights. Big acorn finials to the staircase.
PLAS BRO NDA NW see LLANFROTHEN PORTMEIRION Model resort village on the side of the Dwyryd estuary, by CloughWilliams-Ellis, –, with additions c. – by his daughter Susan Williams-Ellis. It was mostly conceived in two periods of reconstruction, after the and wars; the first period reflecting the architect’s Arts and Crafts training, the second drawing more on classical imagery. The unique circumstances reflect the freedom of one artist, on his home ground, to act as owner, designer and developer. Williams-Ellis (–) was driven by a quest for a more cheerful public architectural language than the severities of local design since Late Victorian days, and had the prescience that tourist business could provide the opportunity. He was lucky also to leave a family who have followed that vision, and who through the Clough Williams-Ellis Foundation have steered it into the modern economy. One of the most personal architectural statements of the , Portmeirion does not conform to the period’s design movements as generally understood. Nikolaus Pevsner aptly remarked that Williams-Ellis was ‘between traditional and modern’; put another way, visitors may see Portmeirion as expressing an edgy