The limestone of Portland has been quarried for use locally for many centuries but one of the earliest references to its use outside the immediate area dates from 1300 when ten shillings was paid for Portland Stone to be used at Exeter Cathedral in the neighbouring county of Devon.
Portland Stone was 'discovered ' by the Palladian architect Inigo Jones in the early 17th century and his use of the white limestone made it nationally (and later internationally) famous leading to a boom in quarrying during the 17th and 18th centuries.
The fame which Jones brought to Portland's stone was assured when Sir Christopher Wren, charged with the rebuilding of London after the Great Fire of 1666 by King Charles II and used it particularly for the many churches he designed - his masterpiece of St Paul's Cathedral among them.
Thousands of tons of stone blocks unsuitable for masonry were removed from the top of the hill by the Victorian convicts to build the breakwater for the harbour. Thousands of waste blocks, heaped and scattered, still litter the whole of Portland.
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The construction of the breakwater of Portland Harbour and the fortifications, one of the great engineering enterprisesof the 19th century is the largest project ever undertaking using Portland Stone.
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Portland stone is a fossiliferous (containing fossils) limestone and 'roach' is a stone which was rejected by the quarrymen because it was full of holes left by the moulds of fossils.
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Much less of the stone is quarried today than in historic times and many of the smaller quarries have been closed. Modern mechanised techniques have led to the demise of the hundreds of stiff-legged derricks which covered the island.
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Portland Stone is an Oolitic limestone which was formed in the warm sea, rich in carbonate secreting organisms, which existed in the area between 160 and 200 million years ago. The small shelled creatures died and sank to the sea bed in vast quantities to form sedimentary beds which became limestone over time.
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Originally, the limestone beds of Portland were worked by gangs or crews of men and, over time, a number of small companies were formed.
Following a number of acquisitions on Portland, Bath Stone Firms Ltd (established in 1887) changed its name to The Bath and Portland Stone Firms Ltd. in recognition of its Portland interests and continued to grow and diversify.
The Bath and Portland Stone Firms Ltd. was acquired in 1985 by Consolidated Goldfields and it quarrying operations on Portland and other interests merged into ARC which now either owns, shares or leases about 625 of the 2350 acres (about 27 per cent) of the Portland Quarries.
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A number of the ARC quarries on Portland which are no longer worked are leased as wildlife reserves.
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The Penny Magazine of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge of February 24th, 1838, gives us an insight into how the Portland quarrying industry was organised at the time;
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Portland being a part of the ancient demense lands, the quarries are held by the sovereign as lord of the manor, and let out to proprietors under various forms of tenure. The quarries are about 100 in number. The crown holds and works about a fourth; and the rest are shared between some half-dozen proprietors, who pay a nominal rent per acre, and a real rent of 2s. per ton for every ton of stone raised and shipped.
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The quarries were worked by gangs of up to six men and two boys who were paid 10s. per ton of stone delivered. The gangs were expected to clear the considerable overburden at no extra pay including the very hard layer of roach which had to be blasted. They were obliged to pay for the sharpening of their "kivels" and other tools and the blasting which was expensive.
Wrested from the ground, the blocks of stone were dragged to a convenient spot where they would be shaped with kivels (double-headed iron pickers weighing twenty-five pounds). Before despatch, the blocks would be measured and their weight and the quarry owner's mark incised into the face of the block (the weight was reckoned at sixteen cubic feet to the ton).
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Ready for delivery, the blocks were moved from the quarries on heavy wagons with solid wooden wheels, each dragged by seven horses.
From the quarries on the west of Portland, the stone was taken to a railway station at the top of Fortune�s Well hill. The railway lowered the stone down the inclines of the hills to a wharf a mile and a half distant at the foot of the Chesil bank. Carriage was charged by the ton; 8d. for the best building stone, 4d. for roach and other inferior stones.
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