Portmeirion
Encyclopedia
Portmeirion is a popular tourist village in Gwynedd
, North Wales
. It was designed and built by Sir Clough Williams-Ellis
between 1925 and 1975 in the style of an Italian village and is now owned by a charitable trust.
Portmeirion has served as the location for numerous films and television shows, most famously serving as The Village
in the 1960s television show The Prisoner
.
Despite repeated claims that it was based on the town of Portofino
, Italy
, Sir Clough Williams-Ellis
, Portmeirion's designer, denied this, stating only that he wanted to pay tribute to the atmosphere of the Mediterranean. He did, however, draw from a love of the Italian village stating, "How should I not have fallen for Portofino? Indeed its image remained with me as an almost perfect example of the man-made adornment and use of an exquisite site..."
Williams-Ellis designed and constructed the village between 1925 and 1975. He incorporated fragments of demolished buildings, including works by a number of other architects. Portmeirion's architectural bricolage
and deliberately fanciful nostalgia
have been noted as an influence on the development of postmodernism
in architecture in the late 20th century.
The main building of the hotel, and the cottages called "White Horses", "Mermaid" and "The Salutation" had been a private estate called Aber Iâ , developed in the 1850s, itself on the site of a foundry and boatyard which was active in the late 18th century. Williams-Ellis changed the name, which he interpreted as "frozen mouth", to Portmeirion - Port to place it on the coast, Meirion from the county of Merioneth / Meirionydd, in which it then lay. The very minor remains of a mediaeval castle
(known variously as Castell Deudraeth, Castell Gwain Goch and Castell Aber Iâ) are in the woods just outside the village, recorded by Giraldus Cambrensis
(Gerald of Wales) in 1188.
In 1931 Williams-Ellis bought from his uncle, Sir Osmund Williams, Bt
, the Victorian
castellated mansion Castell Deudraeth with the intention of incorporating it into the Portmeirion hotel complex, but the intervention of the war and other problems prevented this. Williams-Ellis had always considered the Castell to be “the largest and most imposing single building on the Portmeirion Estate" and sought ways to incorporate it. Eventually, with support from the Heritage Lottery Fund
and the European Regional Development Fund
as well as the Wales Tourist Board, his original aims were achieved and Castell Deudraeth was opened as an 11 bedroom hotel and restaurant on August 20, 2001 by Welsh opera singer Bryn Terfel
.
The grounds contain an important collection of rhododendron
s and other exotic plants in a wild-garden setting, which was begun before Williams-Ellis's time by the previous owner George Henry Caton Haigh and has continued to be developed since Williams-Ellis's death.
Portmeirion is now owned by a charitable trust
, and has always been run as a hotel, which uses the majority of the buildings as hotel rooms or self-catering cottages, together with shops, a cafe, tea-room, and restaurant. Portmeirion is today a top tourist attraction in North Wales http://icnorthwales.icnetwork.co.uk/holidays/topten and day visits can be made on payment of an admission charge.
of Penrhyndeudraeth
, on the estuary
of the River Dwyryd
, 2 miles (3.2 km) south east of Porthmadog
, and 1 miles (1.6 km) from the railway station
at Minffordd
, which is served by both the narrow gauge Ffestiniog Railway
and Arriva Trains Wales
(Cambrian Line
).
The village of Portmeirion has been a source of inspiration for writers and television producers. For example, Noel Coward
wrote Blithe Spirit
while staying in the Fountain 2 (Upper Fountain) suite at Portmeirion. In 1956 the village was visited by architect Frank Lloyd Wright
, and other famous visitors have included Gregory Peck
, Ingrid Bergman
and Paul McCartney
. Musician Jools Holland
visited whilst filming for TV music show The Tube
, and was so impressed that he has had his studio and other buildings at his home in Blackheath
built to a design heavily inspired by Portmeirion.
Television series and films have filmed exterior shots at Portmeirion, often depicting the village as an exotic Europe
an location. Examples of this include the 1960 Danger Man
episode "View from the Villa" starring Patrick McGoohan
, the 1976 four-episode Doctor Who
story entitled "The Masque of Mandragora
" set in Renaissance
Italy, and an episode of Citizen Smith
in which the eponymous hero visits Rimini
. The town of Wiggyville in Cbeebies
Gigglebiz
is shot in Portmeirion as well.
The best-known use of the location occurred in 1966-1967 when McGoohan returned to Portmeirion to film exteriors for The Prisoner
, a surreal
spy drama in which Portmeirion itself played a starring role as "The Village"
. On request from Williams-Ellis, Portmeirion was not identified on screen as the filming location until the credits of the final episode of the series, and indeed Williams-Ellis has stated that the levy of a reasonable entrance fee was a deliberate ploy to prevent the village from being spoilt by overcrowding. The show became a cult classic, and fans continue to visit Portmeirion, which hosts annual Prisoner fan conventions. The building that was used as the lead character's home in the series currently operates as a Prisoner-themed souvenir shop. Many of the locations used in The Prisoner are virtually unchanged from the series, over 40 years after production ended.
Because of its Prisoner connection, Portmeirion has been used as the filming location for a number of homages to the series, ranging from comedy skits to an episode of the BBC
documentary series The Celts which recreated scenes from The Prisoner. In 1987 Jools Holland starred in a spoof documentary, The Laughing Prisoner, with Stephen Fry
, Terence Alexander
and Hugh Laurie
. Much of it was shot on location in Portmeirion, and it included archive footage of McGoohan. In 2002 some scenes were filmed there for the final episode of the TV series Cold Feet
.
Portmeirion, along with the Welsh village of Morfa Bychan
, was used as the location for the filming of the Supergrass
video Alright. The video includes numerous references to The Prisoner.
Iron Maiden
recorded a song called "The Prisoner" on its seminal album, "The Number of the Beast
." In a documentary programme about that album (as part of VH-1's "Classic Albums" series), lead singer Bruce Dickinson
wanders through the avenues of Portmeirion and describes how the song was written and how the band's manager obtained permission from Patrick McGoohan to use dialogue from the show in the song's introduction.
The Channel 4
music program The Tube
also produced videos for XTC
's songs "The Meeting Place" and "The Man Who Sailed Around His Soul" filmed in Portmeirion with the band wearing costumes from The Prisoner
.
Siouxsie and the Banshees used Portmeirion as a setting in their 1987 music video for "the Passenger".
Gwynedd
Gwynedd is a county in north-west Wales, named after the old Kingdom of Gwynedd. Although the second biggest in terms of geographical area, it is also one of the most sparsely populated...
, North Wales
North Wales
North Wales is the northernmost unofficial region of Wales. It is bordered to the south by the counties of Ceredigion and Powys in Mid Wales and to the east by the counties of Shropshire in the West Midlands and Cheshire in North West England...
. It was designed and built by Sir Clough Williams-Ellis
Clough Williams-Ellis
Sir Bertram Clough Williams-Ellis, CBE, MC was an English-born Welsh architect known chiefly as creator of the Italianate village of Portmeirion in North Wales.-Origins, education and early career:...
between 1925 and 1975 in the style of an Italian village and is now owned by a charitable trust.
Portmeirion has served as the location for numerous films and television shows, most famously serving as The Village
The Village (The Prisoner)
The Village is the fictional setting of the 1960s UK television series The Prisoner where the main character, Number Six, is held with other former spies and operatives...
in the 1960s television show The Prisoner
The Prisoner
The Prisoner is a 17-episode British television series first broadcast in the UK from 29 September 1967 to 1 February 1968. Starring and co-created by Patrick McGoohan, it combined spy fiction with elements of science fiction, allegory and psychological drama.The series follows a British former...
.
History
Portofino
Portofino is a small Italian fishing village, comune and tourist resort located in the province of Genoa on the Italian Riviera. The town is crowded round its small harbour, is closely associated with Paraggi Beach, which is a few minutes up the coast...
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, Sir Clough Williams-Ellis
Clough Williams-Ellis
Sir Bertram Clough Williams-Ellis, CBE, MC was an English-born Welsh architect known chiefly as creator of the Italianate village of Portmeirion in North Wales.-Origins, education and early career:...
, Portmeirion's designer, denied this, stating only that he wanted to pay tribute to the atmosphere of the Mediterranean. He did, however, draw from a love of the Italian village stating, "How should I not have fallen for Portofino? Indeed its image remained with me as an almost perfect example of the man-made adornment and use of an exquisite site..."
Williams-Ellis designed and constructed the village between 1925 and 1975. He incorporated fragments of demolished buildings, including works by a number of other architects. Portmeirion's architectural bricolage
Bricolage
Bricolage is a term used in several disciplines, among them the visual arts, to refer to the construction or creation of a work from a diverse range of things that happen to be available, or a work created by such a process...
and deliberately fanciful nostalgia
Nostalgia
The term nostalgia describes a yearning for the past, often in idealized form.The word is a learned formation of a Greek compound, consisting of , meaning "returning home", a Homeric word, and , meaning "pain, ache"...
have been noted as an influence on the development of postmodernism
Postmodernism
Postmodernism is a philosophical movement evolved in reaction to modernism, the tendency in contemporary culture to accept only objective truth and to be inherently suspicious towards a global cultural narrative or meta-narrative. Postmodernist thought is an intentional departure from the...
in architecture in the late 20th century.
The main building of the hotel, and the cottages called "White Horses", "Mermaid" and "The Salutation" had been a private estate called Aber Iâ , developed in the 1850s, itself on the site of a foundry and boatyard which was active in the late 18th century. Williams-Ellis changed the name, which he interpreted as "frozen mouth", to Portmeirion - Port to place it on the coast, Meirion from the county of Merioneth / Meirionydd, in which it then lay. The very minor remains of a mediaeval castle
Castle
A castle is a type of fortified structure built in Europe and the Middle East during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars debate the scope of the word castle, but usually consider it to be the private fortified residence of a lord or noble...
(known variously as Castell Deudraeth, Castell Gwain Goch and Castell Aber Iâ) are in the woods just outside the village, recorded by Giraldus Cambrensis
Giraldus Cambrensis
Gerald of Wales , also known as Gerallt Gymro in Welsh or Giraldus Cambrensis in Latin, archdeacon of Brecon, was a medieval clergyman and chronicler of his times...
(Gerald of Wales) in 1188.
Williams Baronets
There have been twenty Baronetcies created for persons with the surname Williams, eight in the Baronetage of England, three in the Baronetage of Great Britain and nine in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom. Only six of the creations are extant...
, the Victorian
Victorian architecture
The term Victorian architecture refers collectively to several architectural styles employed predominantly during the middle and late 19th century. The period that it indicates may slightly overlap the actual reign, 20 June 1837 – 22 January 1901, of Queen Victoria. This represents the British and...
castellated mansion Castell Deudraeth with the intention of incorporating it into the Portmeirion hotel complex, but the intervention of the war and other problems prevented this. Williams-Ellis had always considered the Castell to be “the largest and most imposing single building on the Portmeirion Estate" and sought ways to incorporate it. Eventually, with support from the Heritage Lottery Fund
Heritage Lottery Fund
The Heritage Lottery Fund is a fund established in the United Kingdom under the National Lottery etc. Act 1993. The Fund opened for applications in 1994. It uses money raised through the National Lottery to transform and sustain the UK’s heritage...
and the European Regional Development Fund
European Regional Development Fund
The European Regional Development Fund is a fund allocated by the European Union.-History:During the 1960s, the European Commission occasionally tried to establish a regional fund. Only Italy ever supported this, however, and nothing came of it. Britain made it an issue for their accession in...
as well as the Wales Tourist Board, his original aims were achieved and Castell Deudraeth was opened as an 11 bedroom hotel and restaurant on August 20, 2001 by Welsh opera singer Bryn Terfel
Bryn Terfel
Bryn Terfel Jones CBE is a Welsh bass-baritone opera and concert singer. Terfel was initially associated with the roles of Mozart, particularly Figaro and Leporello, but has subsequently shifted his attention to heavier roles, especially those by Wagner....
.
The grounds contain an important collection of rhododendron
Rhododendron
Rhododendron is a genus of over 1 000 species of woody plants in the heath family, most with showy flowers...
s and other exotic plants in a wild-garden setting, which was begun before Williams-Ellis's time by the previous owner George Henry Caton Haigh and has continued to be developed since Williams-Ellis's death.
Portmeirion is now owned by a charitable trust
Charitable trusts in English law
Charitable trusts in English law are a form of express trust dedicated to charitable goals. There are a variety of advantages to charitable trust status, including exception from most forms of tax and freedom for the trustees not found in other types of English trust. To be a valid charitable...
, and has always been run as a hotel, which uses the majority of the buildings as hotel rooms or self-catering cottages, together with shops, a cafe, tea-room, and restaurant. Portmeirion is today a top tourist attraction in North Wales http://icnorthwales.icnetwork.co.uk/holidays/topten and day visits can be made on payment of an admission charge.
Location
The village is located in the communityCommunity (Wales)
A community is a division of land in Wales that forms the lowest-tier of local government in Wales. Welsh communities are analogous to civil parishes in England....
of Penrhyndeudraeth
Penrhyndeudraeth
Penrhyndeudraeth is a village and community in the Welsh county of Gwynedd. It is located between Traeth Mawr , the now largely reclaimed estuary of the Afon Glaslyn, and Traeth Bach , the estuary of the Afon Dwyryd. The village is close to the mouth of the Afon Dwyryd on the A487 from...
, on the estuary
Estuary
An estuary is a partly enclosed coastal body of water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea....
of the River Dwyryd
River Dwyryd
The Afon Dwyryd is a river in Gwynedd, North Wales, which flows principally westwards draining to the sea into Tremadog Bay south of Porthmadog....
, 2 miles (3.2 km) south east of Porthmadog
Porthmadog
Porthmadog , known locally as "Port", and historically rendered into English as Portmadoc, is a small coastal town and community in the Eifionydd area of Gwynedd, in Wales. Prior to the Local Government Act 1972 it was in the administrative county of Caernarfonshire. The town lies east of...
, and 1 miles (1.6 km) from the railway station
Minffordd railway station
Minffordd station, is actually two adjacent stations operated entirely independently of each other...
at Minffordd
Minffordd
Minffordd is a village within the Welsh county of Gwynedd. It is situated on the A487 road between Porthmadog and Penrhyndeudraeth....
, which is served by both the narrow gauge Ffestiniog Railway
Ffestiniog Railway
The Ffestiniog Railway is a narrow gauge heritage railway, located in Gwynedd, Wales. It is a major tourist attraction located mainly within the Snowdonia National Park....
and Arriva Trains Wales
Arriva
Arriva plc is a multinational public transport company owned by Deutsche Bahn and headquartered in Sunderland, United Kingdom. It has bus, coach, train, tram and waterbus operations in 12 countries across Europe, employs more than 47,500 people and services over 1.5 billion passenger journeys each...
(Cambrian Line
Cambrian Line
The Cambrian Line is a railway from Shrewsbury to Welshpool, Aberystwyth and Pwllheli. The railway runs first through the central part of Wales and then along the coast of Cardigan Bay....
).
Portmeirion in popular culture
Noël Coward
Sir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy...
wrote Blithe Spirit
Blithe Spirit (play)
Blithe Spirit is a comic play written by Noël Coward which takes its title from Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem "To a Skylark" . The play concerns socialite and novelist Charles Condomine, who invites the eccentric medium and clairvoyant, Madame Arcati, to his house to conduct a séance, hoping to...
while staying in the Fountain 2 (Upper Fountain) suite at Portmeirion. In 1956 the village was visited by architect Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, interior designer, writer and educator, who designed more than 1,000 structures and completed 500 works. Wright believed in designing structures which were in harmony with humanity and its environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture...
, and other famous visitors have included Gregory Peck
Gregory Peck
Eldred Gregory Peck was an American actor.One of 20th Century Fox's most popular film stars from the 1940s to the 1960s, Peck continued to play important roles well into the 1980s. His notable performances include that of Atticus Finch in the 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird, for which he won an...
, Ingrid Bergman
Ingrid Bergman
Ingrid Bergman was a Swedish actress who starred in a variety of European and American films. She won three Academy Awards, two Emmy Awards, and the Tony Award for Best Actress. She is ranked as the fourth greatest female star of American cinema of all time by the American Film Institute...
and Paul McCartney
Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE, Hon RAM, FRCM is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of The Beatles and Wings , McCartney is listed in Guinness World Records as the "most successful musician and composer in popular music history", with 60 gold discs and sales of 100...
. Musician Jools Holland
Jools Holland
Julian Miles "Jools" Holland OBE, DL is an English pianist, bandleader, singer, composer, and television presenter. He was a founder of the band Squeeze and his work has involved him with many artists including Sting, Eric Clapton, George Harrison, The Who, David Gilmour and Bono.Holland is a...
visited whilst filming for TV music show The Tube
The Tube (TV series)
The Tube was an innovative United Kingdom pop/rock music television programme, which ran for five seasons, from 5 November 1982 until 1987...
, and was so impressed that he has had his studio and other buildings at his home in Blackheath
Blackheath, London
Blackheath is a district of South London, England. It is named from the large open public grassland which separates it from Greenwich to the north and Lewisham to the west...
built to a design heavily inspired by Portmeirion.
Television series and films have filmed exterior shots at Portmeirion, often depicting the village as an exotic Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
an location. Examples of this include the 1960 Danger Man
Danger Man
Danger Man is a British television series that was broadcast between 1960 and 1962, and again between 1964 and 1968. The series featured Patrick McGoohan as secret agent John Drake. Ralph Smart created the program and wrote many of the scripts...
episode "View from the Villa" starring Patrick McGoohan
Patrick McGoohan
Patrick Joseph McGoohan was an American-born actor, raised in Ireland and England, with an extensive stage and film career, most notably in the 1960s television series Danger Man , and The Prisoner, which he co-created...
, the 1976 four-episode Doctor Who
Doctor Who
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...
story entitled "The Masque of Mandragora
The Masque of Mandragora
The Masque of Mandragora is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from 4 September to 25 September 1976. It opened Season 14 of the series.-Synopsis:...
" set in Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
Italy, and an episode of Citizen Smith
Citizen Smith
Citizen Smith is a British television sitcom. The show was written by John Sullivan, who later wrote Only Fools and Horses. The pilot was transmitted on 12 April 1977 in the Comedy Special series of one-off plays, and the series proper ran from 3 November 1977 to 31 December 1980.Citizen Smith...
in which the eponymous hero visits Rimini
Province of Rimini
The Province of Rimini is a province in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Rimini. It borders the state of San Marino.-History:...
. The town of Wiggyville in Cbeebies
CBeebies
CBeebies is the brand used by the BBC for programming aimed at children 6 years and under. It is used as a themed strand in the UK on terrestrial television, as a separate free-to-air domestic British channel and used for international varients supported by advertising, subscription or both...
Gigglebiz
Gigglebiz
Gigglebiz is a children's television programme made in the UK. There have been two series, first broadcast on CBeebies , the BBC's younger children's channel, in 2009 and 2011....
is shot in Portmeirion as well.
The best-known use of the location occurred in 1966-1967 when McGoohan returned to Portmeirion to film exteriors for The Prisoner
The Prisoner
The Prisoner is a 17-episode British television series first broadcast in the UK from 29 September 1967 to 1 February 1968. Starring and co-created by Patrick McGoohan, it combined spy fiction with elements of science fiction, allegory and psychological drama.The series follows a British former...
, a surreal
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
spy drama in which Portmeirion itself played a starring role as "The Village"
The Village (The Prisoner)
The Village is the fictional setting of the 1960s UK television series The Prisoner where the main character, Number Six, is held with other former spies and operatives...
. On request from Williams-Ellis, Portmeirion was not identified on screen as the filming location until the credits of the final episode of the series, and indeed Williams-Ellis has stated that the levy of a reasonable entrance fee was a deliberate ploy to prevent the village from being spoilt by overcrowding. The show became a cult classic, and fans continue to visit Portmeirion, which hosts annual Prisoner fan conventions. The building that was used as the lead character's home in the series currently operates as a Prisoner-themed souvenir shop. Many of the locations used in The Prisoner are virtually unchanged from the series, over 40 years after production ended.
Because of its Prisoner connection, Portmeirion has been used as the filming location for a number of homages to the series, ranging from comedy skits to an episode of the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
documentary series The Celts which recreated scenes from The Prisoner. In 1987 Jools Holland starred in a spoof documentary, The Laughing Prisoner, with Stephen Fry
Stephen Fry
Stephen John Fry is an English actor, screenwriter, author, playwright, journalist, poet, comedian, television presenter and film director, and a director of Norwich City Football Club. He first came to attention in the 1981 Cambridge Footlights Revue presentation "The Cellar Tapes", which also...
, Terence Alexander
Terence Alexander
Terence Joseph Alexander was an English film and television actor, best known for his role as Charlie Hungerford in the British TV drama Bergerac.-Early life and career:...
and Hugh Laurie
Hugh Laurie
James Hugh Calum Laurie, OBE , better known as Hugh Laurie , is an English actor, voice artist, comedian, writer, musician, recording artist, and director...
. Much of it was shot on location in Portmeirion, and it included archive footage of McGoohan. In 2002 some scenes were filmed there for the final episode of the TV series Cold Feet
Cold Feet
Cold Feet is a British comedy-drama television series produced by Granada Television for the ITV network. The series was created and principally written by Mike Bullen as a follow-up to his award-winning 1997 Comedy Premiere of the same name. The storyline follows three couples experiencing the...
.
Portmeirion, along with the Welsh village of Morfa Bychan
Morfa Bychan
-The Village:Situated on the Llŷn Peninsula just west of Borth-y-Gest and Porthmadog Morfa Bychan can be reached from Porthmadog via the Borth-y-Gest/Morfa Bychan road or a country lane off the A497....
, was used as the location for the filming of the Supergrass
Supergrass
Supergrass was an English alternative rock band from Oxford. The band consisted of brothers Gaz and Rob Coombes , Mick Quinn and Danny Goffey ....
video Alright. The video includes numerous references to The Prisoner.
Iron Maiden
Iron Maiden
Iron Maiden are an English heavy metal band from Leyton in east London, formed in 1975 by bassist and primary songwriter Steve Harris. Since their inception, the band's discography has grown to include a total of thirty-six albums: fifteen studio albums; eleven live albums; four EPs; and six...
recorded a song called "The Prisoner" on its seminal album, "The Number of the Beast
The Number of the Beast (album)
The Number of the Beast is the third studio album by the British heavy metal band Iron Maiden, released on 29 March 1982 through EMI and on its sister label Capitol the US. The 1998 re-issue was released by EMI and Sanctuary/Columbia in the US...
." In a documentary programme about that album (as part of VH-1's "Classic Albums" series), lead singer Bruce Dickinson
Bruce Dickinson
Paul Bruce Dickinson is an English singer, songwriter, airline pilot, fencer, broadcaster, author, screenwriter, actor and marketing director, best known as the lead vocalist of the heavy metal band Iron Maiden....
wanders through the avenues of Portmeirion and describes how the song was written and how the band's manager obtained permission from Patrick McGoohan to use dialogue from the show in the song's introduction.
The Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
music program The Tube
The Tube
The Tube may refer to:*The London Underground* "The Tube", slang for Television, from the term cathode ray tube*The Tube , an ITV/Sky programme featuring the work of staff on the London Underground...
also produced videos for XTC
XTC
XTC were a New Wave band from Swindon, England, active between 1976 and 2005. The band enjoyed some chart success, including the UK and Canadian hits "Making Plans for Nigel" and "Senses Working Overtime" , but are perhaps even better known for their long-standing critical success.- Early years:...
's songs "The Meeting Place" and "The Man Who Sailed Around His Soul" filmed in Portmeirion with the band wearing costumes from The Prisoner
The Prisoner
The Prisoner is a 17-episode British television series first broadcast in the UK from 29 September 1967 to 1 February 1968. Starring and co-created by Patrick McGoohan, it combined spy fiction with elements of science fiction, allegory and psychological drama.The series follows a British former...
.
Siouxsie and the Banshees used Portmeirion as a setting in their 1987 music video for "the Passenger".