Full Report for Listed Buildings
The list description is not intended to be a complete inventory of what is listed: it is principally intended to aid identification. By law, the definition of a listed building includes the entire building (i) and any structure or object that is fixed to the said building and ancillary to it and (ii) any other structure or object that forms part of the land and has done so since before 1 July 1948, and was within the curtilage of the building, and ancillary to it, on the date on which said building was first included in the list, or on 1 January 1969, whichever was later.
Summary Description
Reference Number
4893
Building Number
Grade
II
Status
Designated
Date of Designation
14/01/1971
Date of Amendment
23/08/2002
Name of Property
Observatory Tower
Address
Location
Unitary Authority
Gwynedd
Community
Penrhyndeudraeth
Town
Locality
Portmeirion
Easting
258925
Northing
336886
Street Side
Location
Prominently sited on the shore-line approximately 300m S of Portmeirion Hotel.
Description
Broad Class
Maritime
Period
History
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 Observatory Tower was built 1936-7 to designs of October 1935. In 1939 a Camera Obscura, alledgedly taken from a German U-boat, was installed on the top floor. As in several other of Sir Clough's buildings at Portmeirion, most notably the Gloriette, the detail of the tower has been deliberately scaled down in order to increase its apparent size.
Exterior
Rectangular tower of whitewashed stone. Of four stages, the 3-storey lower section with small balcony at top level facing N (towards the village). The rendered fourth storey is slightly inset, and has window openings to each face having minute external slatted wooden shutters; plain glazing. Shaped shingle roof with box like structure above with star finial over; wide eaves. The ground floor has an arched entrance to the N face and a double-arched, balustraded opening to the E; arched entrance to the second storey on the W face, accessed via a straight flight of external stone steps; small slit-like windows asymmetrically placed to all faces.
Interior
Reason for designation
Listed as a finely-conceived and distinctive tower; one of a number of buildings and structures designed by the eminent architect and conservationist Sir Clough Williams-Ellis for his visionary Portmeirion villiage.
Group value with other listed items at Portmeirion.
Cadw : Full Report for Listed Buildings [ Records 1 of 1 ]
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