Cof Cymru: National Historic Assets of Wales · Wales
Mermaid
Penrhyndeudraeth, Gwynedd, Wales
The record
- Designation
- Listed building, Grade II
- Broad class
- Domestic
- Date of designation
- 14 January 1971
- Locality
- Portmeirion
- Community
- Penrhyndeudraeth
- Unitary authority
- Gwynedd
- Country
- Wales
- Coordinates
- 52.91337, -4.09920
- Cadw reference
- 4860
Slide toward Today to fade the historical sheet and see the modern map underneath.
David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesDavid Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesLlyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru – The National Library of WalesDavid Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesDavid Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries
Shown on 5 historical map sheets, the earliest the 1795 "To Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn Bart ... the map of the six counties of North Wales is most humbly inscribed by his obedient humble servant" (Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru – The National Library of Wales).
Cadw's description
Location
Located in the centre of the village to the W of the Central Piazza.
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.
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).
Exterior
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.
Reason for designation
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.
Nearby in the register
- Pond, Walls and Steps Immediately E of TrinityGardens, Parks and Urban Spacesunder 1 mi
- Hercules StatueCommemorativeunder 1 mi
- NeptuneDomesticunder 1 mi
- AngelCommercialunder 1 mi
Other entries of the same register within about three miles of this one, by straight line.