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Latitude: 52.9134 / 52°54'48"N
Longitude: -4.0992 / 4°5'57"W
OS Eastings: 258942
OS Northings: 337169
OS Grid: SH589371
Mapcode National: GBR 5R.NDQL
Mapcode Global: WH55T.019C
Plus Code: 9C4QWW72+98
Entry Name: Mermaid
Listing Date: 14 January 1971
Last Amended: 23 August 2002
Grade: II
Source: Cadw
Source ID: 4860
Building Class: Domestic
ID on this website: 300004860
Location: Located in the centre of the village to the W of the Central Piazza.
County: Gwynedd
Community: Penrhyndeudraeth
Community: Penrhyndeudraeth
Locality: Portmeirion
Traditional County: Merionethshire
Tagged with: Cottage
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.
Mermaid was originally built c1840 and served the neighbouring house of Aber Ia (now the hotel) as a gardener's cottage. The cottage, one of four buildings to pre-date CWE's constructed village, was `Cloughed-up' (his term) in 1926. He `...dolled-up the gardener's bothey, which was pretty delapidated, in a sort of late C18 Gothic mood.' The adjoining Virgin and Child sculpture is attributed to Gabriel Grupello (1644-1730).
Two-storey cottage in picturesque Regency-Gothic style; of whitened rubble construction under a slate roof with oversailing eaves and decorative cusped bargeboards; two central chimneys with paired, off-set stacks and pots, one stack missing. The eastern elevation, facing the Central Piazza, has three ground floor entrances with small-pane glazed doors; those to the R each have 2-light latticed windows to the first floor above. The W side has a central gable with smaller flanking gables, all with decorative bargeboards. The central gable contains an arched multi-pane casement, whilst the flanking ones cover dormer windows of latticed type which barely break the eaves. Further asymmetricaly-placed small-pane windows to the ground floor. The southern gable end has a Regency-style verandah with 4 decorative iron pilasters and a sloped metal roof. Adjoining the plain N gable end is a decorative iron canopy covering a painted baroque wooden sculpture of the Virgin and Child.
Listed as a mid C19 former gardener's cottage embellished by the eminent architect and conservationist Sir Clough Williams-Ellis to form part of his visionary Portmeirion villiage.
Group value with other listed items at Portmeirion.
External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.
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