The quarries on Portland are world renown. They are of a strange type of brutal beauty, glare from the white stone is blinding in bright sunshine, heat reflects mercilessly from calcified remains that makes up these huge slabs that tumble and totter precariously all around. Ultimately, their beauty belies the ever present danger that resides…
Tag: quarries
1862; Portland prison, The Pleasantness of Penal Servitude.
These facts are taken from an article penned by an unnamed author in the Cheltenham Chronicle of 23rd December 1862 and yes, that is genuinely what he titles his article…. The Pleasantness of Penal Servitude! They relate to the prison that was built on Portland to contain the convict labour force for building the Portland breakwater…
1906; The Portland boy buccaneers.
Slightly out of the Victorian era I know, but only just. This story caught my eye as it summed up the excitement and invincibility of childhood, feelings of the exciting escapades of the Famous Five, even though the lads involved were more teenagers, and the story had it’s slightly dark side. In the April of…
1866; Portland quarry men and boys…theyz toils ‘n toils.
Portland is world famous for it’s quarries. This Isle is littered with immense craters in the ground, and large roughly hewn blocks of stone tumble in seemingly haphazard piles across the almost lunar landscape. There’s absolutely no doubt that those men and boys who slogged away day in day out in the quarries at Portland earnt…
Portland’s Own Glorious Cheddar Caves…Ooopps, But Then Again, Maybe Not! 1869
When ever I research items of local history, it never ceases to amaze me the amount of articles in local papers of the time that tell of new or rare things that the Victorians discovered, but despite all their curiosity of the amazing natural world around them…their first reaction would be to grab their gun and…
VICTORIAN TALES FROM WEYMOUTH AND PORTLAND 