Welcome to my web site which contains maps, stories, history, advice and over 800 photographs to help you explore Portland, Dorset - The Jewel of the Jurassic Coast

Mutton Cove

Portland, Dorset
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All the pictures on this page showing a thick border are thumbnails. Clicking on the picture will produce a larger version. Use your browser BACK button to return to this page.

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The above image is copyright Dorset County Council 2000 and is reproduced here with permission

This aerial photograph shows the area covered by this page within the red square.

This contains magnificent cliffs at the top of which is a World War 2 bunker and gun emplacement.

Slightly below the level of the cliff-top path is a layer of exposed rock showing fossilised ripples formed on an ancient sandy beach. 

It is amazing that something so delicate could have survived over one hundred million years of geological upheavals and turmoil.

Until the 1990s the cliff top fields in the upper right corner of the red square were open and horses were tethered to stop them wandering. 

Now, most of this area has been enclosed and can no longer be walked. 

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A World War 2 lookout post and the remains of a gun emplacement.

 

Some of these wartime features are being preserved as scheduled monuments.

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Nature slowly but inexorably takes its toll on the structure. 

Visible through the observation slit is part of the magnificent view over Lyme Bay.

This view looks south through the rotting steel of the observation slit showing Southwell Business Park on the cliff top.

The beautifully preserved sand ripples created over 100 million years ago when these stone layers were at sea level and continental drift was slowly carrying the land across the equator to more northerly temperate latitudes.

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 On the shelf a little down the cliff (CAREFUL!) are a few fossilised trees. In fact, like the fossils on the east of the Isle, these are actually the fossilised growths that forms around the base of the tree stumps; the trees themselves having long been eroded away.
The coastline looking south. The huge scree slope near the middle of this photograph is due to quarry spoil being tipped over the cliff.

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In 1989 these concrete blocks and rusting steel gun mount were reminders of World War 2 fortifications. 

By 2002 they were gone and this field between the cliff edge and Weston's housing estate is now fenced and used by horses.

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