The Isle and Royal Manor of Portland
To see a Picture of Portland Taken from the Internatonal Space Station.
click here
The Island is joined to the mainland by the south-eastern end of the Chesil beach and has a road bridge linking it to Weymouth. There are around fifteen thousand souls who live here and they are distributed around the various 'Areas' such as Chiswell, Fortuneswell, castletown and the Verne Common in Underhill and Easton, Weston, Southwell, Wakeham and the Grove on Tophill.
There were at one time three penal institutions located here, but with The Prison Ship 'The Weare' having closed down we
are left with 'The Verne' for adult offenders and the Young Offenders Institution.
Historically Portland has been associated with the Armed Forces but with the closing of the Royal Navy Air Station 'The Osprey', that association is now all but finished the exception being that from time to time the new Portland Port Authority plays host to Naval vessels of various sorts and soon to include Nuclear ships.
The 2012 Olympic Sailing events are to be held on the excellent waters of Weymouth and Portland and already we have the Sailing Academy in place
situated right at the centre of it and many archaeological, historical, and architectural places of interest are to be found
here including a Mesolithic site, a number of castles and quarries in which are found many fossils.
stone which has been used for many of the notable buildings of our Country such as St Pauls Cathedral designed by Sir
Christopher Wren and for sculpting, a good example of which is the 'Spirit of the Island' which sits overlooking the Chesil
Beach on the side of the new road leading up to 'Top Hill'