Portland-bill hits it's 100th post, 10 interesting facts...

Portland-Bill.com hits it's 100th post and I wanted to take the moment to share some interesting facts about Portland.

So, with that I give you 10 interesting facts you may or may not know about the Isle of Portland...

1. Portland is notably famous for it's fantastic very workable yet durable white stone, believe me as a mason I say this stone is fantastic.

Portland is scattered all over the world in amazing buildings and other carvings, like statues for an example.
Much of London was rebuilt wit Portland stone after the war. It's likely that you are closer to Portland than you think.

Thanks to this our island is shrinking, fast!

2. Michael Caine I believe started his long career in part here.

In 1949, a young Michael Caine was sent to Portland dockyard, by his then employers Rank films Org.
He was employed as a tea boy (uncredited) on the set of the film 'Morning Departure'.

On set he was shown the skills of lighting, sound & amp; camera skills.Although Caine never starred in the film, it was his first step into a long film career totalling over 100+ films, which we can say... began at Portland!

I bet not many people know that!

3. Portland has a unique "dough cake" known as, funnily enough...Portland dough cake.

A closely guarded recipe I believe, much like many places have their own "treats" we are the only place selling these cakes and they are damn nice. Do not ask me what the recipe is, I have no idea...yet! :o)

These are small square cakes, about the size of a playing card but perfectly square and sell in packs of four, or more, and if you visit Portland you should try them.

4. Portland has 8 churches, although a few have closed in the last few years, months, there are 8 church buildings.

For a small Island (4 miles by 1.5) that is quite a few. These churches do line up geographically, no surprise there really and you can read more about Portland's interesting history and geographic twist in the great Secrets of the sacred isle.

5. Portland has two prison set ups here, one for adults and one for young offenders, yet the adult one known as The Verne was built by prisoners to house the military. It was a citadel and now it's housing...prisoners.

I understand it is not such a high category place as it once once was, it now houses mainly foreigners which I feel is wrong, they should be deported.

Years ago, 20 odd or more before it all changed, I remember that the Verne housed some of the most dangerous prisoners, it was known as a high cat prison, there are some strange tales of prisoners here from 100 years ago up to the 70's, there are several books with such tales of old.

The young offenders institute is a big building sat further down the east side of the island from the Verne, as can be seen below...



6. Portland has the Worlds longest Unbroken pebble beach, well one end starts here and 19 miles further along the shore at Lyme Regis is the other end.

It is also a world heritage site and is one of the few protected places in England, it's also part of the Jurassic coast.
It is against the law to remove any of these pebbles from the beach and if you pick some up you WILL get a local telling you off.

7. Portland, due to it's unique location and shape, is the lowest point in the UK apart from the most southern parts of Cornwall, all of Devon (west of Dorset) is north of Portland geographically.

Cornwall is mainly very hard stone (granite style) so will outlast many parts of the coast along the south with erosion and such.

8. Portland played a big role in the D-Day landings during the war and played a big part in the war in general.

From Portland sailed thousands of men to take on the Germans on French soil, Portland was a hive of activity, likely to have been the most active it's ever been.

Our naval base was one of the main ones on the south coast, it's now no longer here.

9. Portland and it's people have long disliked those floppy haired things with little fluffy tails.
One famous one is called Bugs... you know what I refer to... cousins of hares! Underground Mutton. Bunnies.

Never do you hear the Rabbit word on Portland... in fact a famous film by Wallace and Gromit you will have heard of called "curse of the were R" promoted the film using unique to Portland posters with a rephrased tile, "something bunny is going on".

This is due to the belief they have burrowed the hell out of the island and indeed made it a massive warren!
This was seen as bad luck by those working in the quarries and this superstition runs back centuries.

10. Thomas Hardy, the famous author from Dorchester referred to Portland as the "Isle of slingers" in his works, he wrote about Portland in several, the slingers was based on the fact Portlanders were expert stone throwers (many of us have a natural knack and aim here) which in those days were used to defend the island.

Many of us have spent days throwing pebbles at things like floating wood in the water on Chesil beach, in fact me and my youngest son do it almost every weekend if we hit the beach, other times, often as kids, we aimed stones at rats in the quarries.
The moving targets made interesting improvements on throwing. Bear in mind here these are huge and bloody awful rats you wouldn't want to be with a few feet of, not nice little "petty" rats.

Thank you for being a reader over the last 100 post, and here's to the next 100.