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.

Reasons for Listing

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

• Cadwr Listing
• Wikidata Q29484448

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.

Recommended Books

• 
  Cambridgeshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Staffordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Devon (Pevsner Buildings of England)
• 
  Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair
• 
  Bristol (Pevsner Architectural Guides: City Guides)
• 
  Specifications for Building Conservation: Volume 1: External Structure: Practical Examples v. 2