The Edge of the World

Portland, Dorset, UK … the edge of the world.

They walked past the lighthouse, over quarry and field. 
Climbing down into their sheltered cove.

 

Warming sun, forgiven for a day.  

Heating the stones.  Radiating warmth into her bones. 

 

Enjoying this book ...

 

... and some inspiration from Jamie ...
 

A strange furry creature sailing by.  Making them laugh ...

 

Sustenance ...

Rock climbing, pool poking.

As the day tired and the sun's rays became a mere whisper, they headed for home.

Stopping at Weymouth on the way. 
Revellers revelling on the quayside, girls in stretch limos, boys being boys.

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The Isle of Portland is a tied island, with a population of almost 13,000.  The island forms the southern point of Dorset with a bar of chesil, over which runs a road, connecting it to the mainland.

The hard white stone  quarried there is renowned worldwide and has been used since Roman times. 

Portland stone was used to build the Palace of Westminster, the Tower of London, the east side of Buckingham Palace, the Queen Victoria memorial, The British Museum and numerous other grand and important buildings in other UK towns and cities.  Six million tons of the stone  was used to rebuild St Paul’s Cathedral and many other buildings after the great fire of London in 1666.

Portland also provided the stone for the Cenotaph in Whitehall and for the gravestones of the hundreds of thousands of soldiers killed in the Second World War, whilst many bombed out towns and cities were reconstructed using Portland stone facades.  It has also been used in buildings across the world including the UN building in New York.

Accidents in Portland's quarries led to a fear of the word rabbit – long associated with bad luck the use of the word is still taboo for some residents.  The reason is believed to derive from quarry workers who blamed rabbits for increasing the risk of sometimes deadly rock falls and landslides – they would often see rabbits emerging from their burrows immediately before such an event.  If a rabbit was seen the workers would pack up and go home and local fishermen would refuse to go to sea if the word was mentioned.  As a result the rabbits were referred to as ‘underground mutton’, ‘long eared furry things’ or just ‘bunnies’.

The Portland superstition came to national attention in 2005 when a special batch of advertising posters for the Wallace & Gromit film, The Curse of the Were-Rabbit were made just for Portland, omitting the word ‘rabbit’ and replacing the film’s title with ‘Something bunny is going on’!