Back to Portland Home Page

Back to Portland Map Index page

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.

In the lower left-hand part of the red square is a limekiln, a garage and a small area of industrial buildings.

Please click here for a detailed street map. Click the BACK button on your browser to return to this page.

Please click here to visit the satellite image of this area on Google Maps. Click the BACK button on your browser to return to this page.

This huge hole was created in the 1980s north of the Portland F C football ground.

In the late 1980s planning permission was granted for it to be used for landfill with inert waste.

According to the satirical magazine Scallywag, waste rotting food was alleged to also have been dumped here from lorries arriving in the dead of night from outside Dorset. 

It is impossible to say whether this was true or not but it is a fact that the filled quarry now is generating methane which has to be piped to the surface and dispersed - a very potent 'greenhouse gas' many times worse than carbon dioxide.

Posing in a rubbish tip whilst wearing my comedy false stomach - if only!

This is the huge quarry seen above after filling with waste.

The pipes are for collecting and dispersing methane generated by decaying rubbish.

In October 2002 a company was fined heavily for dumping rubbish in another  Portland quarry in contravention of planning restrictions.

And so it still goes on...

CORPORATE VANDALISM

Adjacent to the infilled quarry on its southern side was a huge rock outcrop - Withies Wall. Apart from its highly significant geological importance *, on top of this wall was a Victorian security wall with old sentry posts - a wonderful relic from 19th century convict prison days. Unfortunately, in June 1993 the quarry owner smashed it down - without permission and without any regard for its scheduled status. 

At Left Above - Withies Wall in 1989 - a unique and accessible geological feature on Portland.

At Right Above -The feature partially destroyed in the mid-1990s. Part of the ancient prison wall can still be seen.

Above - Destruction complete! An important part of Portland's geological and cultural heritage turned into crushed aggregate!

Councillor Margaret Leicester was among many Portlanders who were outraged by this vandalism and The Dorset Evening Echo carried a major feature in its issue of 29th June 1993.

Historian Stuart Morris described this destruction as "A tragic loss to the island's heritage."

However, such blatant disregard of the History of Portland - or indeed of Planning Law - has been typical of the behaviour of some of the quarry companies in destroying Portland's heritage over the centuries. The plan in the late 1980s to demolish one of Portland's medieval windmills to gain access to the stone beneath it was typical of the profit-driven mutilation of Portland by some of the commercial stone companies until tighter planning conditions were created and imposed in the 1990s.

In 1998 the company formally requested permission to remove further sections of rock face so one can only hope that commercial attitudes are changing - albeit slowly - away from profit-driven vandalism.

* See http://www.soton.ac.uk/~imw/withies.htm#intro for a description of this geological feature.

Waycroft Tunnel is in the centre of the photograph found by clicking here.

Ii is the last quarry tramway tunnel still accessible at both ends although there are plans (2008) to open up similar tunnels between Tout and Inmosthay quarries, please click here.

This is situated near the centre top edge of the red square above.

In the late 1980s fears were expressed that this tunnel might collapse under the influence of nearby blasting.

However, it still survives and was strengthened in 2006 to make it safe.

'Yours Truly' posing at one entrance to the Waycroft Tunnel showing the massive lintel stone that supports the weight of the rocks above.

A Victorian tramway rail sticks out from the quarry spoil in Kingsbarrow Quarry - a reminder of this areas industrial past.

The Easton Street limekiln is its days of neglect, late 1989.

The kiln itself was open to the wind, rain and vandals whilst the northern associated building was derelict.

Another view of the disgraceful state into which the limekiln had been allowed to decay by the late 1980s.

The rusty metal roof offered no protection at all.

It was from this humble building that lime was sent to the Drury lane Theatre in London to provide its 'limelight'.

The grate and chimney breast of the old kiln as vandalised in 1989.

Coal and stone were piled into the chimney from above and burned. The coal burnt away leaving lime (Calcium Oxide) which could be used as fertilizer, for making mortar and for the limelight in theatres and large rooms.

Back to Portland Home Page

Back to Portland Map Index page