History

Until 1839 when the first Ferry Bridge was built, Portlanders were truly isolated from mainland influences. The only way to Portland was the long walk along the Chesil Bank or an often hazardous passage by ferry at Smallmouth. Portland people neither needed nor wanted outside interference, they were a strong and distinct community with their own practices and customary laws based on common sense and equality. From at least Saxon times Portland was an important part of the royal estates, Portland people have never acknowledged a squirearchy but through their Court Leet have looked direct to the Crown. This isolation and the quality of the stone of the island has created a unique environment and community which attracted the great architect Sir Christopher Wren and inspired the writers Thomas Hardy and A.E.Houseman, as well as painters such as John Upham and Paul Nash who photographed Chesil beach.

The history of the island, recorded most recently by Stuart Morris in "Portland An Illustrated History" and B.L.Jackson�s "Island of Portland Railways" is still very near the surface. It is to be found in the narrow streets, in the small concealed gardens, some of which give protection to national collections of plants and exotic treasures.
A number of these are open to the public under the National Gardens scheme. In the quality of its
architecture, in the church yards of Old St Andrews and the now redundant church of St George where among the tomb stones is one, for example, dedicated to Mary Way who was shot by the Press gang on the 2nd of April 1803. Since the arrival of the Romans Portland has provided safe anchorage for shipping and following the building of the breakwater in the nineteenth century the Royal Navy has played a significant part in the life of the island. With the departure of the Navy in the nineteen nineties a number of small industrial estates have sprung up and in Southwell Business Park a new generation of young artists and craftspeople have found affordable studios which enable them to work on Portland