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| Home
/ History
/ Portland
and Weymouth / Portland's Deep Sea Harbour |
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| Building the Breakwaters |
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| Source: Various (please see
Site Credits) |
Click any picture to enlarge
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| Looking across Breakwater Fort to Portland |
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One of the great
construction projects undertaken by Victorian Engineers was
the enclosure of the anchorage at Portland Roads to make the
finest deep water harbour in Europe. This was achieved by placing
some six million tonnes of stone on the sea bed stretching from
the north east point of the Island of Portland east and north
towards Weymouth for a distance of one and a half miles. |
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| The foundation stone
was dropped into the sea by Prince Albert on the 25th July 1849
and the completion stone laid by his son Edward, the Prince
of Wales, on the 29th July 1872. |
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| Laying the first stone, 1849 |
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| Prince of Wales arrives to open the
Harbour, 1872 |
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| Opening the Harbour - the stone laid
by the Prince of Wales |
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| Rough weather during construction |
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The new harbour was to have as
the core of its defences a large citadel overlooking the new
works on the highest point of Portland and building this would
require the excavation of two deep and wide ditches. From these
would come the required stone for the breakwaters and the first
task the engineers had to undertake was the construction of
an inclined railway down the hill to the shore. Trucks would
carry the stone down the incline hauling empty trucks up at
the same time. Once at the bottom the stone was loaded into
hoppers of special trains to be transported out to sea to be
dumped into position. |
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| Building the Breakwater showing the
construction railway |
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These trains travelled on tracks laid five abreast along
staging built like an enormous long bridge. Supporting the
tracks were wooden piles, 80 to 90 feet long with metal screw
feet designed to be twisted 8 foot into the clay of the sea
bed. In each day of pole screwing, bracing, track laying and
stone dumping the breakwaters progressed 30 foot. The enterprise
attracted visitors from all over Dorset and a special walkway
was constructed for the trippers who arrived in Captain Cozens
new paddle steamers. One poor lady caught her dress ia a truck
and was dragged to her death.
The completed breakwaters consisted of two arms. The one
attached to the shore at Portland had a small fort, the Inner
Pierhead Battery at the seaward end. The longer, outer arm,
had provision for a much larger construction which was later
to be the Breakwater Fort.
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| Cross section of Inner Arm |
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The stone was left
for three or four years for the sea to settle it and then a
trench was dug along the length and a masonry core built. Half
the work was done by contracted workforce and the other half
by convicts from the newly built prison on Portland. Arguments
raged as to which workforce was more cost effective. From the
figures produced the use of convicts was most inefficient with
many man hours lost due to stringent security measures. |
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| Pierhead Fort from the outside |
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The completed breakwaters consisted
of two arms. The one attached to the shore at Portland had a
small fort, the Inner Pierhead Battery at the seaward end. The
longer, outer arm, had provision for a much larger construction
which was later to be the Breakwater Fort. |
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| Inner Pierhead Fort - inside |
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| With the advent of
the torpedo as a standard naval weapon there was a worry that
ships in the harbour would be vulnerable to attack from Weymouth
Bay and so it was decided to completely enclose the harbour
by building two more arms to the north to link with the shore
at Weymouth.. In the meantime wooden islands, or dolphins, were
built connected with nets to close the gap. The new arms were
completed in 1903. |
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| A Dolphin, showing the stone laid to
start the north arms of the breakwater, completed 1903 |
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| The first HMS Hood which was sunk as
a block ship across the south entrance to the harbour |
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The original entrance in the south
was now blocked with an old battleship, the first HMS Hood.
A sophisticated boom defence system was installed in the two
new entrances to the north. |
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| Aerial view of the Breakwater Fort and
the Boom |
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| TOP |
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