Category: Hit the North

A Great British seaside break to the Italianate village of Portmeirion, North Wales

Here is my latest feature for Telegraph Travel, part of the Great British seaside series.

I visited Portmeirion, staying in the village overnight for a taste of Clough’s architectural folly without the crowds.

Read on for top tips about how to make the most of your visit, plus a heads up about plans for the upcoming 150th anniversary.

Here’s a taster of my article:

It’s known as ‘The Village’.

The pastel-coloured facades and magpie-like collection of buildings provided the psychedelic backdrop to the 1960s TV series, The Prisoner and offered a haven for artists and musicians from the Jazz Age to the Sixties.

The author Noel Coward wrote his comic play Blithe Spirit here in 1941 and The Beatles were regular visitors after their manager took a lease on Gatehouse.

But, most of all, Portmeirion is the creative vision of its founder, the architect Clough Williams-Ellis.

He bought a plot of land on the Snowdonia coast in 1925 and devoted his life to his Italianate folly, working with nature to create something unique.

The “home for fallen buildings” was constructed in two phases until just before his death in 1978, salvaging old buildings from demolition in an early take on upcycling.

The village still chuckles with his wry humour in its design.

Celebrations for Portmeirion’s centenary year are now in progress with plans for a 1920s-style house party at Hotel Portmeirion to commemorate the Easter 1926 opening and a series of open-air concerts to keep alive Clough’s desire for the village to bring pleasure to others — as it did to him.

Today, Portmeirion is a staple of North Wales daytrips but, despite the coach groups, Clough’s words, from his book, Portmeirion: The Place and its Meaning, still hold true:

“My main objective, that of architectural and environmental propaganda, is by no means obscured.”

Read the full feature via Telegraph Travel, Inside the most bizarre seaside village in Britain.

Liked this? Try also: How Aberystwyth plans to revive the glory days of the British seaside.

How to enjoy a seaside trip to the quirky mid Wales resort of Aberystwyth

A trip to Aberystwyth for Telegraph Travel as part of their summer seaside series.

I spent a couple of days in the Mid Wales resort to find out more about regeneration and the uniquely quirky charm of Aber.

Here’s a sample from the feature:

It was a hub of lead-mining and shipbuilding. The town boomed with genteel Victorians, taking the seaside air, turning it into the Biarritz of Wales. And, more recently, it provided the backdrop to a genre-defying Welsh noir.

The idiosyncratic seaside resort of Aberystwyth, Aber to the locals, pivots around its Norman castle with twin beaches — yet maintains an isolated air given its westerly position on Cardigan Bay.

Proudly Welsh speaking, it’s now home to the National Library of Wales, the nation’s largest Arts Centre and bolstered by a lively student population during university term times.

But there’s also an air of faded grandeur with some of the pastel-coloured Victorian and Edwardian resort hotels in desperate need of some love.

The arrival of the railway in the 1860s transformed the town’s fortunes, establishing a thriving coastal resort, the opening of the Royal Pier, the first in Wales, soon following.

There are green shoots of regeneration, too. The first phase of the wave-crashed promenade’s £10.8m facelift is almost complete.

The renaissance of the Old College, the grand old Victorian building that served first as the first home of the University of Wales, aims for 2027 completion with a new cultural centre and four-star hotel.

Read the full feature via Telegraph Travel, How Aberystwyth plans to revive the glory days of the British seaside.

Liked this? Try also: A tour of south Wales to mark the centenary of the scren idol Richard Burton.

A tour of South Wales to mark the centenary of the screen idol Richard Burton

The Welsh actor Richard Burton would have marked his 100th birthday this year.

On the eve of the release of the film Mr Burton about his early life in Wales, I joined a new tour in south Wales to learn more about the screen legend.

It visits the village where he born and sites associated with his story around the town of Port Talbot.

This travel assignment was for Telegraph Travel.

Read a sample here:

The starting point, the Miners’ Arms [the mural on the facade pictured above], is where Richard’s parents first met and the actress Sian Owen, his niece, has a poem to ‘Uncle Rich’ framed on the wall amongst old family photographs.

It describes his “face, pocked, rived and valleyed”.

Read the full feature via Telegraph Travel, The South Wales mining village that made Richard Burton a global icon.

Liked this? Try also: How to celebrate Cheshire Day with a celebration of Cheshire cheese in Nantwich.

How to celebrate Cheshire Day with a celebration of Cheshire cheese in Nantwich

Cheshire Day marks the coming of spring.

The annual celebration of food, culture and heritage from my home region of Britain is still relatively low key.

But, as a Cheshire resident, I find plenty to celebrate on my home patch.

So, this year, I prepared for the Cheshire Day cheese fest with a trip to Nantwich [St Mary’s Church pictured above] and cast my eye around the region.

The travel assignment was for Telegraph Travel.

Read a sample here:

I’ve come to Nantwich to stock up for Cheshire Day, celebrated annually on March 30.

It’s a historical reference to the date the county was given its own Charter of Liberties by King Edward I in 1300 — in effect its own Magna Carta.

It’s also a somewhat manufactured construct because Cheshire suffers from an identity crisis.

Read the full feature via Telegraph Travel, In praise of Cheshire, Britain’s most misunderstood county.

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