Portland Museum is a

museum A museum is an institution dedicated to displaying or Preservation (library and archive), preserving culturally or scientifically significant objects. Many museums have exhibitions of these objects on public display, and some have private colle ...

on the

Isle of Portland The Isle of Portland is a tied island, long by wide, in the English Channel. The southern tip, Portland Bill, lies south of the resort of Weymouth, Dorset, Weymouth, forming the southernmost point of the county of Dorset, England. A barrier ...

Dorset Dorset ( ; Archaism, archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by Somerset to the north-west, Wiltshire to the north and the north-east, Hampshire to the east, t ...

, southern England. It is located at the southern end of the hamlet of Wakeham. The museum is housed in two 17th-century thatched cottages, which have both been Grade II Listed since 1951. One of the museum's cottages, Avice's Cottage, is featured in

Thomas Hardy Thomas Hardy (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Literary realism, Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, including the poetry ...

's 1897 novel ''

The Well-Beloved ''The Well-Beloved: A Sketch of a Temperament'' is a novel by Thomas Hardy. It spans forty years, and follows Jocelyn Pierston, a celebrated sculptor who attempts to create in stone the image of his ideal woman, while he tries also to find her ...

'', as the home of three generations of "Avices" – the novel's heroines. Portland Museum - geograph

Portland Museum was founded by

Marie Stopes Marie Charlotte Carmichael Stopes (15 October 1880 – 2 October 1958) was a British author, palaeobotanist and campaigner for Eugenic feminism, eugenics and women's rights. She made significant contributions to plant palaeontology and co ...

, who purchased the museum's two cottages, then derelict, in 1929. She then donated them to Portland as a museum which opened in 1930. Stopes was the first honorary curator and continued her association with the museum until her death in 1958.

Features

The museum has four distinct themes; the history of

Portland stone Portland stone is a limestone geological formation (formally named the Portland Stone Formation) dating to the Tithonian age of the Late Jurassic that is quarried on the Isle of Portland in Dorset, England. The quarries are cut in beds of whi ...

, the

Jurassic Coast The Jurassic Coast, also known as the Dorset and East Devon Coast, is a World Heritage Site on the English Channel coast of southern England. It stretches from Exmouth in East Devon to Studland Bay in Dorset, a distance of about , and was ins ...

, shipwrecks around Portland's coast and famous people linked with the island. It also displays examples of the island's archaeology from the Stone Ages onwards. The Marie Stopes Cottage features a small exhibition about Stopes and a display of items connected to Hardy. A "Victorian Corner" displays the wedding dress of a local girl and objects that would have been found in a Victorian parlour. The top-floor of the cottage contains the Maritime Room. The garden has a collection of local fossils and artifacts, including the casing of a World War II bomb found on Portland in 1995. The management of Portland Museum was transferred from Weymouth and Portland Borough Council to the newly formed Portland Museum Trust on 1 April 2008. The trust, a registered charity, continues to operate the museum. In 2012 the Portland Island Museum Supporters group was established.

References

External links

Portland Museum
– official site {{Jurassic Coast Museums established in 1930 Museums on the Isle of Portland Geology museums in England Local museums in Dorset Jurassic Coast 1930 establishments in England Paleontology in the United Kingdom

Features

See also

References

External links