Isle of Portland

Portland is not really an island at all, but a 4.5-mile long peninsula, well known to devotees of shipping forecasts and even more famous for the stone from its quarries. It is a Unesco World Heritage Site, a Site of Special Scientific Interest, and a European Special Area of Conservation. Quarrying has been an industry here for centuries and the earliest reference to the stone being used outside the area is 1300, in the building of Exeter Cathedral. Numerous buildings in London are constructed of Portland stone, among them the Cenotaph, St Paul’s Cathedral, Inigo Jones’ Banqueting Hall in Whitehall, and Buckingham Palace, and the stone was also favoured by sculptors such as Henry Moore. (The stone was also used for the graves of British servicemen killed in both World Wars; the stone used for these graves proved vulnerable to erosion and in 1998 the Commonwealth War Graves Commission began to use a type of marble instead.) In the Tout Quarry Sculpture Park some 50 pieces in the local stone are on display – watch out for Anthony Gormley’s figure of a man falling down the rock face!

The island’s most famous building is Portland Castle (English Heritage), one of the finest of Henry VIII’s coastal fortresses. Its active role lasted for 500 years, right up to World War II when it provided a D-Day embarkation point for British and American forces. Oliver Cromwell used the castle as a prison and in Victorian times it was the residence of Portland’s governors. Visitors can meet ‘Henry VIII’ in the Great Hall, view the Tudor kitchens and enjoy the special events that are held regularly throughout the year.  The battlements overlook superb views of Portland Harbour whose breakwaters were constructed by convict labour to create one of the largest man-made harbours in the world.

At the southernmost tip of the island, the Bill of Portland, the first lighthouse to be built here is now a base for birdwatchers. The current Portland Bill Lighthouse offers guided tours during the season and also has a visitor centre. Nearby are some particularly fascinating natural features: the tall, upright Pulpit Rock which can be climbed, and some caves to explore.

The Isle provides some good cliff-top walks with grand views of Chesil Beach, a vast bank of pebbles worn smooth by the sea which stretches for some 10 miles to Abbotsbury. Inexplicably, the pebbles are graded in size from west to east. Fishermen reckon they can judge whereabouts on the beach they are landing by the size of the pebbles. In the west they are as small as peas and usually creamy in colour; at Portland they have grown to the size of cooking apples and are more often grey. The long, narrow body of water trapped behind the beach is known as The Fleet. It is now a nature reserve and home to a wide variety of waterfowl and plants, as well as fish that can be viewed by taking a trip in a glass-bottomed boat, the Fleet Observer. On the highest point of Isle of Portland is Verne Citadel, which was a base for troops defending Portland and Weymouth. It became a prison on 1950.

At Southwell, near the tip of Portland Bill, St Andrew’s Avalanche church was built in 1879 chiefly as a memorial to those who perished when the clipper Avalanche sank off the Portland coast at the beginning of a passage to New Zealand. Also in Southwell is the Portland Museum, which was funded by the birth control pioneer Marie Stopes who lived on the Ireland. Housed in a charming pair of thatched cottages, the museum has had a major overhaul and its displays centre on the themes of Stone, Sea and Shipwrecks, Local Archaeology and Famous Portland People.