Portmeirion Gardens

An estate of buildings and gardens, modelled on Italian coastal villages. The land was acquired by Clough Williams-Ellis in 1925 and developed by him until 1970. It has landscape, architecture and gardens, held together by the asthetic of making places 'like a picture'. The designer was highly inventive in his use of materials, decoration and fragments of old buildings. Sir Clough was an architect and a Vice President of the Institute of Landscape Architects. There is a hotel in the village and some of the small houses are available for rent.