Portland Harbour Architecture

I love some of the architecture that gets posted by sea kayakers. Portland Harbour in Dorset was photographed by South West Sea Kayaking.

Portland Harbour is in Dorset, England

made famous by it’s stone, the excitingly named Portland Stone. The much more ubiquitous Portland Cement (i.e. concrete) was named after the stone because of its similarity. That explains the concrete-looking-ness of the above photo, but doesn’t explain the techtonics which are more Greek than English.

Portland Castle is also nearby.

image from English Heritage. You would never guess it was built in 1540 something. It looks like a (stylised) concrete ww2 bunker.

“…[it] was built by Henry VIII as part of that monarch’s ambitious scheme of coastal defences against the French and Spanish. It has survived largely unaltered since the 16th century, making it one of the best preserved examples of Henry’s castles. The low-profile fortress, built of white Portland stone, overlooks Portland and Weymouth Harbour.” source