Portland
Port
The Ideal Cruise Ship Destination
Portland is the starting point for guided tours and excursions to some of the most beautiful country and exciting destinations in the south of England:
Portland’s port lies in the sweep of Weymouth Bay amidst a stunning coastline that is set to join the Grand Canyon and the Hawaiian volcanoes as a UNESCO World Heritage site. Inland, rural Dorset’s countryside is of outstanding natural beauty where market towns are linked by country lanes and hedgerows to picture-postcard villages, each with its church, manor house, thatched cottages, farms, and village pub.
Thousands of years old, Chesil Beach, once the Isle of Portland’s only link to the mainland, is an immense wall of shingle that stretches for 15 miles and, for much of its length, encloses the Fleet, the largest lagoon in the country and of international environmental importance.
At the north end of Portland Harbour, the ancient port of Weymouth is a bustling holiday town of great charm, with its sandy beaches, 17th century harbour (a haven for Tall Ships, the home of yachts and a thriving fishing industry), Georgian seafront, cobbled streets, shops and restaurants. Weymouth was a favourite resort of King George III.
Guided tours and excursions from Portland extend from the nearby village of Abbotsbury, with its famous swannery first established by Benedictine monks in the 15th century, to the World Heritage sites of Bath and Stonehenge and the ancient woodlands of the New Forest.
Rich in literary and cultural heritage, the county has been home to Jane Austen, T.E. Lawrence, more romantically remembered as Lawrence of Arabia and, above all, Thomas Hardy whose Wessex novels have captured the 19th century life of his beloved Dorset, which can be explored in both full and half day "Hardy Country" tours. In recent years, the novels of many of these writers, and others, have been made into films on Dorset locations that,
on tours following this theme will be recognised by visitors from around the world.
Wessex, the Kingdom of Alfred the Great, once dominated the rest of England. It still bears the marks of ancient civilisations and the remnants of a more violent age. At Cerne Abbas, the famous Giant, cut into the hill 1500 years ago, has attracted visitors since pagan times. The county town of Dorchester, scene of Judge Jeffrey's Bloody Assizes - after Sedgemoor, the last battle to be fought on English soil - was laid out by the Romans. It was the Romans, also, who finally subdued the Britons' mighty hill fortress of Maiden Castle that stands beside the road from Weymouth.
To the east of Portland, the stark hill-top ruins of Corfe Castle, destroyed by Oliver Cromwell during the Civil War, dominate the pretty village below and remain as a memorial to King Edward the Martyr, murdered there by his step-mother in AD 978.
Dorset is rich in manors and former religious houses. 15th century, battlemented Athelhampton is one of a number of fine houses in a list that includes Forde Abbey, Kingston Lacey and Mapperton, where renowned flower and shrub-filled gardens are open to visitors during the summer. Not all is old. In Dorchester, the visitor can see how the Prince of Wales is developing, at Poundbury, a new approach to 21st century living that seeks to create the community of a village in a modern urban and light industrial setting.
For those who wish to spend a day further afield, three easily accessible destinations stand out for their splendour.
Bath, founded by the Romans an AD 44 on the site of its warm mineral springs, is not only one of the country's oldest cities but is also the most complete Georgian city in Britain. In the centre of the town, the baths ( amongst the best preserved Roman remains in the country) adjoin the 18th century Pump Room. Bath has long been a city of culture and fashion (the Assembly Rooms, now housing the Museum of Costume, is one of the city's grandest public buildings). It has featured in literature from the birth of the English novel in the mid-18th century.
Stonehenge, where man worshipped at the dawn of history, has the most complex story of any ancient monument in Europe and, is evidence that there was a civilised life in southern England more than 2,000 years before the birth of Christ. Huge and mysterious, Stonehenge has been at the top of the visitors' list for generations. This tour also includes the mediaeval cathedral city of Salisbury, one of the most beautiful in Britain. The 13th century cathedral has the tallest spire in the country and also a dial-less clock dating from 1386, probably the oldest mechanism in working order in the world. The cathedral library contains one of the four original copies of the Magna Carta.
The New Forest is the oldest of the great forests of England covering 145 square miles, it is the largest that remains. It became new when William the Conqueror, in 1079, cleared much of the ancient woodland and decreed it a royal hunting preserve.
By the 17th century, the forest had assumed strategic importance as the source of oak for Britains growing navy, 40 ships of Nelson's fleet were built on the Beaulieu River at Bucklers Hard, an 18th century shipbuilding centre, with yards that once employed 4,000 men, and is now a pretty harbourside village. Nearby at Beaulieu, the Palace House, the former gatehouse of the 13th century abbey destroyed by Henry VIII, is the home to the National Motor Museum.
