I just spent considerably less than 24 hours in Llandudno, a place that I had never visited. And am besotted. Just a neat, well kempt (I gather due to the good offices of the Mostyn estate?) entirely Victorian resort, wrapped round a slow bow of a bay marked to one end by a (mostly) green doorstop of land, to the other by the continuing curve, or an illusion of one, made by the pier.
As well as the natural embrace of the landscape, Llandudno has a modest taste for excess – ironwork porches, balconies and sometimes both combined that are as good as any I’ve seen.
And on top of this, it boasts a building that would not look out of place on Pall Mall, but this while being built as a gentleman’s club in the heyday of Wales’s largest seaside resort also doubled as a bank (which, in part, it remains) and a zany 1930s covered colonnade which winds up and away above the pier, towards a cable car, Happy Valley and much more. To be celebrated.
@gilliandarley
@gmdarley
Gillian Darley