EVEN the most cynical travellers find it hard to stifle a gasp when they walk through the Bridge House arch and see Portmeirion for the first time. The secluded location of the village, buried between woods and water on the north side of the Dwyfor estuary, means that virtually everyone gets their first view when they reach the delightful Italianate square dominated by the Toll House and Bell Tower. This was all intentional of course, all part of the masterplan dreamt up by the creative genius behind the village - Clough Williams Ellis. It was his idea that visitors should enter the village having first walked along an enclosed, tree-lined drive - thereby intensifying the sense of colour and space when the first view arrives. After such a cunning seduction, visitors cannot fail to fall under the spell of this unique architectural experiment. Across the tiny square the view opens out still further across the central piazza, a green arena surrounded by yet more beautiful buildings.
 Every corner of the village contains some new intriguing detail, and all the buildings have their own story. The nautical Toll House, which backs on to the first square, has a lookout tower on the top floor. Williams Ellis described the house as "that black weather boarded thing, looking rather Norwegian." A Norwegian seaside cottage on an Italian square? Only in Portmeirion, and the miracle is that it all looks just right. Several other houses at the top end of the village, like the Battery and Pilot House, also have the same weather-boarded nautical style. The magnificent Bell Tower dominates the village from the upper square. It was apparently an integral part of Williams Ellis's plans for Portmeirion. Its impact, which comes shortly after entering the village, was recognised by the architect: "It was imperative that I should open my performance with a dramatic gesture of some sort." At the base of the tower, a plaque carries a dedication to Gruffydd ap Cynan whose 12th century castle stood on the site but was destroyed in the 1860s by Sir William Fothergill Cook, inventor of the Electric Telegraph and presumably no great admirer of the indigenous Welsh Princes! Williams-Ellis claimed Gruffydd ap Cynan as a distant ancestor, and the plaque reads as a small but satisfying victory for the old country: "This 19th century affront to the 12th is thus piously redressed in the 20th." As you walk down towards the main piazza and the buildings that lead down to the seafront, the style subtly shifts. The breezy nautical, vaguely Scandinavian themes give way to Italianate pastel shaded villas, domes and colonnades. Towards the bottom of the path is The Town Hall, arguably the most impressive building in the village - and one that has big connections with Flintshire, that most unsung of North Wales corners. The Town Hall was designed to house a Jacobean ceiling, panelling and mullioned windows salvaged from Emral, which sat within a moat in the border county. Williams Ellis was tipped off about Emral's demolition a few years before World War II, and embarked on a brave salvage operation - the fruits of which are now happily visible in Portmeirion. When you tire of the buildings, take a wander down the magical waterfront promenade, which leads to a typically Welsh stretch of rocky coastline and panoramic views of the Rhinog mountain range. It may be a figment of my imagination, but Portmeirion has always seemed to me to enjoy a unique climate. There is something about the limpid atmosphere of the estuary that accentuates the beauty of the buildings. Or is it the other way round? Do the buildings bring out the best in the landscape? Among knowledgeable architecture experts, the village apparently tends to polarise opinion. Frank Lloyd Wright, perhaps the world's most famous architect, and a man proud of his Welsh heritage - was said to be impressed by Portmeirion. But some other confirmed modernists are not so keen on the hotchpotch of styles and deliberate trickery. Philistines like me are not burdened with such knowledge. We always know what we like. I happily confess to not knowing the slightest thing about architecture, but Clough Williams Ellis' riotous celebration of styles has immediate appeal to an ignorant buffer like me. It is one man's fantasy taken through sheer determination to a logical, but fantastic conclusion.
Portmeirion and The Prisoner | 
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