4878

 

II*  

Designated  

14/01/1971  

23/08/2002  

The Colonnade  

 

Gwynedd  

Penrhyndeudraeth  

 

Portmeirion  

258980  

337184  

 

Overlooking the Central Piazza to the E.  

Gardens, Parks and Urban Spaces  

 

Portmeirion was designed and laid out by the celebrated architect Sir Clough Williams-Ellis (1883-1978) following his purchase of the estate, then called Aber Iâ, in 1926. The village evolved over several decades and was still being added to in the 1970s. The Bristol Colonnade was built c1760 as part of the Arnos Court bathhouse in Bristol; its patron was the Quaker copper smelter William Reeve. The bathhouse itself was bomb-damaged during the war and rapidly fell into dilapidation. In 1959 the colonnade was removed to Portmeirion and reconstructed by William Davies, CWE's master mason; it was formally opened by Earl Russell, O.M. on 10th April 1959. The sculptor Jonah Jones incorporated a portrait head of CWE as a label stop on the left-hand blind entrance.  

Imposing single-storey colonnade in Georgian Gothic style, with balustraded parapet above; of Bath stone ashlar construction. There are 16 slender columns with a semi-circular projecting bow to the centre of the composition. Solid pavilions at both ends with archways with depressed pointed arches (that to the L blind). Balustrades over, pierced to the sides, and with turned balusters to the centre. To the L and R there are stone ogee domes over the pavilions with ball finials. Raised rear wall behind the central projection, surmounted by 3 large urns. Within, in the centre of the rear wall, is a stone ogee arched niche with painted northern-Renaissance style angel sculpture and swagged flanking cartouches. The Colonnade is on a revetted rubble plinth with a flight of rubble and slate steps leading up to it from the lawn to the S of the Central Piazza.  

 

Listed Grade II* as an important Georgian Gothick colonnade; one of a number of buildings and structures reconstructed by the eminent architect and conservationist Sir Clough Williams-Ellis at his visionary Portmeirion villiage. Group value with other listed items at Portmeirion.