My husband and I stay for a week most summers in Portmeirion, the strangest and loveliest ‘village’ in the world. Built amid 20 miles of woodland on the peninsula of Tremadog Bay in Wales, it was called ‘a home for fallen buildings’ by its creator Clough Williams-Ellis, a local landowner. It was opened in 1926, and George Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells and Bertrand Russell were early visitors; Noël Coward wrote Blithe Spirit here in 1941. I won’t try to describe it; if you’ve never seen it, just google it and prepare to be astonished.
But oy, the drive! In the past we’ve motored from Brighton through Birmingham, a trip of more than eight hours. This time, we stopped at a hotel near Shrewsbury created by Williams-Ellis for luvvies who couldn’t make it all the way without a dry martini or a wet wash: the Mytton and Mermaid.
The mermaid is the symbol of Portmeirion — but the Mytton bit is nowhere near as enchanting.
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