Bohemian & Libertine · Penrhyndeudraeth, Gwynedd
Portmeirion (Noël Coward writes Blithe Spirit)
Clough Williams-Ellis's Italianate folly-village on a Welsh estuary — a place built purely for pleasure — where Noël Coward, taking rooms in 1941, wrote 'Blithe Spirit' in five days. The village's flamboyant unreality has drawn the theatrical, the artistic and the amorous ever since.
Sources
Nearby on the map
Two upper-class Irish women who eloped in 1778 to set up home together, scandalising and enthralling Georgian society; their Gothic cottage drew Wordsworth, Byron, Wellington and Walter Scott, and Queen Charlotte won them a royal pension. A cornerstone of British queer heritage — Anne Lister herself visited.
Documented historyHot spotNotable LandmarksSt Winefride's WellHolywell, Flintshire · WalesThe 'Lourdes of Wales' — a holy well whose origin legend is a tale of thwarted lust; pilgrims still bathe in the star-shaped basin for healing and intercession.
Documented historyLiterary PassionDylan Thomas Boathouse, LaugharneLaugharne, Carmarthenshire · WalesThe cliff-side home of Dylan and Caitlin Thomas, whose passionate, tempestuous, hard-drinking marriage was as famous as his verse; the writing shed overlooking the estuary is preserved as if he had just stepped out.
Documented historySpotted an error, or hold a better source? Write to marquis@marquisdemayfair.com — corrections are made, never defended. Our methodology.