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Portland Castle
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KING OF THE CASTLES
WORDS: JANE SOOLE
PICTURE: BRIAN JUNG & GEOFF MOORE
Tramping round the lonely, echoing stone rooms of Henry VIII’s Portland Castle on a freezing, damp, grey early January day, muffled up to the ears in scarf and hat, it was easy to imagine those early residents, wrapped up in layers of thick woollen clothes, feasting before roaring log fires, and dancing to lute and crumhorn. Who knows, the musicians perhaps even playing some of bluff King Hal’s own compositions.
This idyll is likely to have been a harsh world away from the truth for much of the time, if only in terms of the imagined sweet scent of log fires 450 years ago, as custodian Julie Shields explains: “As trees didn’t grow well on Portland, they wouldn’t have had wood fires, but cow dung and straw was burned from November to May which would have caused a terrific stench!”
Julie, who prepares food for the Tudor and Elizabethan weekends and schools visits, has researched the diet of the times.
“In medieval days we would have eaten fish and local mutton and bread with every meal, but very little fruit and vegetables – although we used to eat nasturtium leaves. It was thought the plague came in on fruit and veg and therefore it was considered healthier to eat meat.”
You’ll notice Julie, who is a member of the Wardour Re-enactment Group, says ‘we’ and that is because, like the head custodian Antoinette Woolven, she is totally immersed in the history of the castle. Their enthusiasm and encyclopaedic knowledge of their subject draws in all who take part in the castle’s ‘living history’ days and weekends.
Henry VIII built this fortress – one of a chain of artillery forts along the South Coast – to withstand threatened invasion from the Spanish and French, to protect the waters which were then called Portland Roads. The building was completed in 1540 and the now crumbling Sandsfoot Castle across the water in Weymouth was finished around a year later.
Visitors today to Portland Castle can be accompanied on part of their historical journey, via a personal audio handset, by a master builder of good Queen Bess’s time, revealing exciting tales of yore. Although Sandsfoot Castle suffered from erosion and fell into ruin some 300 years ago, the Portland Castle, with its distinctive curved walls built to withstand canon balls, is well preserved.
The master builder tells us that on August 2, 1588, less than a month after Elizabeth I was crowned, a fierce battle took place off Portland Bill between English and Spanish vessels in sight of crowds watching the spectacle from Portland Bill.
That threat was averted but the firmly Royalist Portland castle garrison (“We are for the King”) came under siege by Cromwell’s forces of the Civil War in 1642 to 1643.
The stronghold was fought over, tooth and nail; captured, recaptured – changing hands many times but finally falling to Cromwell and his parliamentarians in 1643. Only a month after losing Portland, King Charles I surrendered, paving the way for the Commonwealth.
Portland Castle’s fortunes ebbed and flowed, becoming a private residence in Victorian times until, in 1870, it was placed in the hands of the government during World War I when it was an important seaplane station.
During World War II it was at the forefront of preparations to recapture northern Europe. Occupied by the Royal Navy until the 1950s, the castle was also a base for the United States Navy from 1943 preparing for D-Day and the Normandy Landings in 1944. On June 19 and 20 this summer, the castle will be “Remembering 1944” to commemorate the 60th anniversary of D-Day in which Portland and Weymouth played such a vital part.
Now under the wing of English Heritage, Portland Castle is a magnet for visitors from all over the world and for school visits from across the south of England.
Tudor Christmas at Portland Castle was such a success that people who came are already booking up for a similar event in December this year.
Other highlights ahead include the Shakespeare Festival in August, a weekend of Real Spooky Stories in October and Haunted Hallowe’en Tours.
The season opener, meanwhile, is gentle with the Easter Quiz and Bunny Hunt in the new Heritage Garden, opened last summer. Designed by Chelsea gold medal winning garden designer, Christopher Bradley-Hole, it is in its early stages but the garden is based on a circular amphitheatre which it’s planned will be the setting for concerts and even sword fights.
A red letter day last summer was the arrival of the Queen’s Jubilee baton at the castle, carried by runners to every country in the Commonwealth; and the ancient Ceremony of the Keys, when head custodian Antoinette Woolven recited John Of Gaunt’s speech from Richard II and members of the Napoleonic Association added colour and stirring sound to the occasion with their red uniforms, drums and musket shot salutes - and there’s more of that to come.
To find out all that is going on at Portland Castle telephone 01305 830539 on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays until April when it will be open seven days a week.
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