52 Walks in 2010 - Walk 21 - Portland Castle and Marina (12th August 2010)

Today we went to Portland. Our first walk of the day took us around Portland Castle which overlooks Portland harbour and is one of Henry VIII’s finest coastal forts, built in the early 1540s to protect against French and Spanish invasion.

Built in about 1540, of Ashlar stone, the finest Portland Stone available, the castle is in excellent condition. This may be because it experienced few actual encounters with France or Spain and aside from the English Civil War in the mid 1600's when the Parliamentarians and Royalists alternately occupied the Castle, or in the early 1800's when the Castle had a few incursions during the Napoleonic Wars, Portland Castle remained unarmed. It was however rearmed during World War I when it was used as a sea plane station, and then again during World War II, when the Castle became a major part of the base of operations in preparation for D-Day







The main gun room is now open to the sky having lost its roof that acted as the second gun platform.

A short walk from Portland Castle is the new Portland Marina. Brand new for 2009, Portland Marina is part of the venue for hosting the sailing events for the London 2012 Olympic & Paralympic Games. It was the first venue to be completed and delivered for the London 2012 games and means the locals and visitors can use the facilities before the games as well as the Olympic hopefuls. As well as the marina there were a number of new hotels, apartments and other building being built ready for 2012.

It was a lovely place and walking along the waterside and then sitting in one of the cafés on a glorious sunny day it was like being in the South of France.