White Horses

White Horses (part C18, extended 1966; listed Grade II 1971) was originally a fisherman's cottage. The old part is a single storey stone building with central chimney stack of traditional Welsh pattern. Clough's addition links the Observatory Tower to the old cottage. It is constructed on arches over the path which overlooks an inset anchorage for boats. The cottage was inhabited for a time by Thomas Edwards, an infamous South Walian better known locally as yr Hwntw Mawr who worked as a labourer for William Maddocks on the Porthmadog embankment. In 1813 he was publicly hanged at Dolgellau for the murder during a robbery of Mary Jones, the maid at Penrhyn Isaf farm close to Portmeirion. White Horses' is so called because with a spring tide and a south-westerly gale, crested breakers batter its walls and occasionally even break and enter. At one time Clough used it as a workshop where weaving and dyeing went on. In 1966 Clough converted White Horses into habitable accommodation by adding two bedrooms raised on arches above the beach footpath. One of the first residents was Patrick McGoohan who stayed at White Horses during the filming of The Prisoner in 1966 and 1967.
Further along the coast one comes to a folly lighthouse which marks Portmeirion's southernmost point. Made of sheet metal and crowned with an upturned pig boiler and ornate finial it was in situ by 1963.