Portland Island – 1858

Located and transcribed by Bob Stone

this article appeared in

"Household Words" A Weekly Journal

conducted by Charles Dickens

dated 17 April 1858

Pages 423 to 429

Has Dorsetshire no scenery, no mines, no manufactures; nothing but starving labourers on bad farms and dusty third-rate watering places?

Nine people in ten are not aware of the important fact, that Portland Island is no island at all; but a peninsula.  Formerly, it is true, the world got over to Portland Island by means of a ferry-boat.  Less than twenty years ago, the way to the ferry, and the only way, was over a mound of shingles, into which horses' legs must plunge knee-deep at every step.  Now, there is a famous road, ending in a good strong bridge over the little strait; and, on the bridge - rare sight on British soil - are sentinels, who, with fixed bayonets keep guard over the turnpike-gate.

From this bridge there is a fine view of the north-west side of the island, but the best first view is to be had from the Weymouth steamer while crossing the Portland Roads.  From the steamer

we see right a head a precipitous escarpment of stone, the topmost point of which is four hundred and eighty feet above the sea level, and which is relieved in the foreground by a long grassy slope, reaching down to the houses and the sea.

Chips of that stone block are Saint Paul's cathedral, many of our London churches, and the bridges of Westminster and Blackfriars.  But it does not achieve greatness in London only, part of it is being transformed into a Breakwater, that shall make of its own coasts a haven, even for the largest men-of-war.

Be it known that the foundations of our island are laid in Kimmeridge clay, which on the north side of us rises to some height.  Over the clay are beds of Portland sand, and of the oolitic limestone, known as Portland stone.  We dip towards the south, and as the island dips, the beds of clay and sand and stone dip.  Of the stone, the lower bed, just over the clay, contains kernels and veins of flint.

The middle bed is full of petrifactions.  The upper bed, to within twenty feet of the surface (surface of the series, not of the ground) consist of our fine architectural stone.  That is our best bed, we call it the White-bed.  There is a blanket over it three or four feet thick, of limestone full of holes, left by shells that have made impressions and then disappeared; that blanket we call Roach.  Over it is a rather tumbled sheet of flint nuts, that we call Cap.  Over this is a coverlid of earthy oolitic waste, known as the Dirt-bed.  Beautiful yellow pyrites, known as sugar-candy spar, and stalactites of chalky (sugar-plum) spar occur in the clefts of the limestone.  Of stone of all kinds, the thickness is about ninety-three feet on the east side of our island, and a hundred-and-twelve on the west.

The White-bed, or Whit-bed was brought into fashion by King James the First, who used it in rebuilding the Banqueting House at Whitehall.  But it was not until after the great fire of London that vast demands were made upon it; since that date it has been a valuable article of commerce.  Nevertheless, as matter of sentiment, I prefer the Dirt-bed.  It is a black loam, rich in the remains of tropical foliage and in the great trunks of trees changed into flint.  Some of them, more than thirty feet long, branch at the upper end, and they bore heavy crops of cones, in days when there were no men to be convicted of offences against society, and when there was no society, except that among animals who were not likely to use Portland as a convict-station, and employ the prisoners in work on a great Breakwater.

Of Portland quarries there are two kinds, these and those:- These, are the Government quarries  for the Breakwater, three hundred feet above the sea-level on the east side of the island; those, are the old private quarries, lying more to the westward at a lesser altitude.  From both, the stone is lowered on inclined tram-roads, furnished with "drums" for the passage of the chains at the head of each incline, the loaded wagon in its descent pulling the empty one up by its weight.  The Government "drums" are bigger than the private drums, and – strange to say – display much more science in construction.  The private quarries export annually about fifty thousand tons of the valuable Whit-bed, a duty of two shillings being paid on every ton.  The stones are got out, of different sizes; upon the average, about one ton each in weight, but many of the large blocks weigh five or six tons.  The large quantity of stone just mentioned is less than one- ninth part of the quantity of rubble-stone (Cap) which is tumbled every year into the sea through the massive rafters of the Breakwater cage.  The Cap is not marketable among architects, being hard, rough, and shelfy; and it is supposed that twenty millions of tons of it were lying idle on the summit of the island, when the Breakwater was begun.

The sights of Portland, independent of the Government works and the quarries, are Portland Castle at the water's edge, Rufus Castle over the hill, the ruins of old Portland Church down the precipitous hill side, Pennsylvania Castle, a modern house built by a grandson of William Penn, with feudal aspirations, and the two light-houses at our Tierra del Fuego, or the Bill, which warn sailors of the Race and of the Shambles.  These are not great sights, and I make no boast of them; but Portland was well worth going to see long before any castle was built there.  The bold and noble face of the old island itself is, after all, the finest thing it has to show.  It is worth castle, ruin, convict prison, breakwater, and quarries.

If you would view Portland aright, visit it by the pale moonlight a day or two after a heavy gale, when the sea is still running with all its force upon the Chesil Bank.  Go up to the hill-top, and you will trace a wizard lizard curve in all its beauty.  The wind is perhaps high, and blows away the full sound of the sea, but the wide-drawn line of foam stretching far out along the distant miles, tell what a deadly force is fighting in each wave to break the neck of the good island.  There lies the Chesil Bank, dreamily stretching far away to the north-west and forming a natural breakwater from the west, for Weymouth, and the Roads; lover down, guarding the splendid Swan-Decoy, of Abbotsbury, where the abbots used to indulge in seven thousand head of swans, and where Lord Ilchester keeps up a goodly number at this day; still farther down – always kind to the men on land, but never quite disposed to join hands with its sister-shore – it melts away in the dim distance, and we see only that it is always gently following its own beautiful curve, still but a little way distant from the land, but still with the division set between the shores.  If turning southward the spectator gets out of the Bill, he will not, except in clear daylight, be able to boast of having seen Torbay westward, and the Isle of Wight to the east, but he may do better.  He may fancy himself at the world's end and think new thoughts.  The crags may talk to him of that by-gone time, when the Invincible Armada did pass along the Dorset coast, and the young gentry of England did incontinently hire ships from all parts at their own private charges, and therein speed to their own fleet as volunteers.  William Hatton, a nephew of Sir Christopher Hatton, then the owner of Corfe Castle, with many more of the highest rank, became efficient members of this gallant yacht-club.  The old rocks may ring out the echoes, wakened on a July day two hundred and seventy years ago, when, after a dark night and with a heavy sea running, Howard and Raleigh came to blows with the Armada, off this very point.  Then, a battle began, which lasted nearly all that day; they, the English fighting loose and at large, and avoiding close combat or boarding, played off their small craft against the galleons in noble style; keeping separate, and always in motion, they tacked and played about the enemy, pouring in their fire; then, sheering out of range, they would return before the Spaniard had time to reload, give him another broadside, and sheer off again.  Sir Henry Wotton, while the work was a-doing, compared all this in the joy of his heart, to a merry morris dance upon the waters.

Danes by descent, with a strong infusion of Saxon blood, we Portlanders are a stalwart, muscular race, admirably suited to our quarry-work, and still keeping a good deal aloof from our neighbours on the mainland.  Four or five family names, of which Pearce and Stone are the most common, suffice for almost the whole of us.  There are probably five hundred Pearces.  The old practice of Gavelkind prevails here still.  The Crown is lord of the manor in chief; but, under the Crown, there are no fewer than three hundred and twelve landed proprietors, who lord it over three thousand acres of titheable land.  There is no want of boldness among Portanders.  With fourteen vessels, averaging seventy tons each, we carried on the "free-trade" merrily, within the memory of man.  It is commonly reported on the spot, that of all the owners of those formidable luggers, not a descendant is now living.  In many of the old houses in the upper villages may be seen large holes, which were used as Smuggler's Caves.  But the trade seems to have died out with the descendants of the owners of the fourteen vessels.

The wrecking-system, too, is gone.  Our forefathers were mighty men in that shore-traffic, and used to sing, with a relish, the local ditty;

 

"Blow wind, rise sea,

Ship shore 'fore day."

 

Scarcely more than a hundred years ago, they rifled the Hope of Amsterdam of jewels and bullion on board, as she lay stranded a few miles to the north-west of Portland.  For two whole days the shore was an unbroken scene of barbarity and violence.  When all was over, the owners of the Hope were poorer by five – and – twenty thousand pounds.  In these days, when a vessel drives ashore upon the Chesil Bank, what was done formerly for robbery, is now done for charity and mercy.  When a vessel has no chance left, a few well-tried men are always ready, half-stript, with a rope lashed round the waists, who make their way to the vessel as soon as she runs aground, or strike out for any floating goods.

There is a man now living on the spot, who, when his wife's time was near, and there was great fear for her life, leaped on a horse and galloped along the Chesil Bank (no easy matter,) to the ferry, then the only way of communication with the mainland.  A high wind was blowing, and all his efforts failed to make the boatmen hear.  The man thought of his wife; and, tearing off his clothes, he swan the strong current of the strait, pulled the boat back for the horse, dressed, rowed back again, galloped into Weymouth for the doctor, and brought him back.  This fine fellow's nickname (the island deals largely in nicknames) is Ben the Baker.  All honour to gallant Ben, the Deloraine of Portland!

Electioneering was, in former days, another favourite pastime of the inhabitants, and they liked it almost as well as wrecking.  Men of all sorts of abilities, and of all sorts of morals have represented Weymouth in parliament.  In the times of the troubles, John Strangeways, a noble ancestor of the Earls of Ilchester, was the member; and, after the Restoration, Sir William Penn, father of the William Penn of history.   In days more recent, Sir Christopher Wren and Sir James Thornhill, the architect and the painter of St. Paul's, both sat for the borough; Sir Christopher taking his seat when over seventy years of age.  About a hundred years ago, Bubb Dodington was jobbing votes there in good earnest, as the following extracts from his Diary may show:

 "1752, May 5 – Saw Mr. Pelham; began by telling him of

the application I had received, & c.  I assured him that

the interest of Weymouth was wholly in me and Mr. Tucker

& c; and for this I desired no rank that could justly

create envy in my equals, or suspicion in my superiors.

 

1754, April 14, 15, 16 - Spent in the infamous and disagreeable

compliance with the low habits of venal wretches.

 And not long before his time, one John Ward, of Hackney, M.P. for Weymouth, had been expelled the House for forgery, and had stood in the pillory.  At the death of this conscientious senator, there was found among his papers, in his own handwriting, a characteristic prayer, thus beginning:

O Lord, thou knowest that I have nine houses in

the city of London; and that I have lately purchased

an estate in fee simple in the county of Essex.  I

beseech thee to preserve the two counties of Middlesex

and Essex from fire and earthquake; and as I have a

mortgage in Hertfordshire, I beg of thee to have an eye

of compassion also on that county; and for the rest of

the counties, thou mayest deal with them as thou art

pleased.  Give a prosperous voyage to the Mermaid

sloop, because I have not insured it.  Enable the bank

to answer all their bills.

 And so on.

The increase, lately, in our population, has been very great.  It is just nineteen years since the rector buried an old man of ninety, who was said, at his birth, to have made the thousandth living Portlander.  When the Act was passed, ten years ago, for the formation of the Breakwater, the population had only doubled itself in the hundred years; there were then two thousand people in Portland.  There are now six thousand; the ten years having trebled it.  Yet the insular mind seems to remain in its old condition, and to run in the same traditional grooves.

A great deal is to be said about the Chesil Bank; and a great deal has been ably said of it by the engineer-in-chief of the Breakwater Works, Mr. John Coode.  For what we have now to say we are indebted to a valuable pamphlet issued by that gentleman.

The Chesil Bank or Pebble Bank – Chesil is Saxon for pebble – is a vast ridge of shingle, in the form of a narrow isthmus, lying upon the western sea-board of Dorsetshire, between Abbotsbury and Portland   Starting from Abbotsbury Castle, the Bank skirts along the margin of the meadows for half a mile, where it meets the Fleet, a shallow estuary between a quarter of a mile and half-a-mile in width; it then runs parallel to the mainland as far as Wyke, a distance of eight miles; and thence pursues a more southerly course of two and three-quarter miles further, to Portland, where it becomes an ordinary beach.   The shingle is composed, chiefly, of chalk flints, with a sprinkling of red sandstone pebbles.  We may pick up now and then a jasper pebble, of flesh-coloured red; these are like Devon limestones, and have often been mistaken for them.  There is, however, no calcareous matter in them.  Still more rarely, we may see green and red porphyritic pebbles: enough, however, to show that they do not come there by accident.  A Portland fisherman will assure us that, land him where we please upon the Bank, in a pitch-dark night, he will know his whereabout by the size of the pebbles.  This is absolutely true within certain limits, if the observation be confined to the small shingle which is found immediately upon the crest.  The graduation in size is very regular at that level, though variable lower down.

Whence come the pebbles?  And, when found, what force is at work to transport them from point to point, and to plant them thus in the form of this high mound?  First, it is clear that Portland cannot raise the shingle.  There are no pebbles whatever on its west-side, excepting an accumulation, entirely oolitic, from the waste of the strata above, and from the rubble and quarry waste, thrown over the cliff.  From the main land near Wyke, keeping along the coast as far as Lyme Regis, we find no chalk flints.  It is manifest that none of these oolitic beds would supply any materials corresponding to the shingle on the bank.  Westward of Lyme there comes a change.  Indications of chalk with numerous flints begin at that point; and, between Lyme and Sidmouth, the cliffs yield a large quantity of flints.  Again, between Sidmouth and Budleigh Salterton, the dull red and blotched pebbles of new red sandstone nearly cover the beach; and on this very beach the jasper pebbles are found, brought down by the river Otter from Aylesbere Hill, about six miles north; to which point they have been laboriously traced.  It may then be determined, that the chalk formation between Lyme and Sidmouth is the source from which come the chalk-flints, the chief bulk, that is to say, of the Chesil Bank.  Westward of Sidmouth the flints end: but the sandstone and jasper pebbles, which form an appreciable item in the component parts of the Bank, prevail down to Budleigh Salterton.

Everywhere the shingle of the bank terminates suddenly, at a given depth of water.  The depth varies with the degree of exposure and aspect of the shore; yet the tidal current remains, for all practical purposes, the same.  The largest pebbles are invariably found to leeward: that is, they increase in size from Abbotsbury to Portland, from north-west to south-east.  Moreover, there is a very marked and rapid increase between Wyke and Portland.  Yet it is precisely at this point that the tide begins to slacken; nor is it any way reasonable to suppose that a stream, varying only from half a knot to one knot per hour, should exert any sufficient influence upon the gigantic mass.  Let us assume, then, that the tidal currents do not bring the pebbles to the bank, but that the wind-waves yield the active force, thrown as they are upon the west bay coast by the prevailing west and south-west winds.  So we shall understand why the large pebbles are found to leeward.  They present a greater surface to the waves, and are moved along more readily in consequence.  If we throw a pebble of the size of an orange upon a beach composed of smaller pebbles, we see it rolled up and down more actively than smaller particles, which form as a mass a generally even plane, and expose individually only a small part of their surface to the action of the wave.

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