Portland Heritage Assessment

English Heritage summaries. 2007/2008

The staging of the sailing events of the 2012 Olympic Games and the expansion of the commercial port on the Isle of Portland in Dorset have provided a stimulus for the regeneration of the harbour, the port and related redevelopment projects across the Isle. These developments, which are set to bring important economic regeneration to the Isle, also have the potential to negatively impact the cultural heritage resource. 

In order that English Heritage and the local planning authority are able to engage with Olympic and port development partners more effectively, the need for an island-wide overview of the heritage interests on Portland was identified. Currently the island, which is rich in chiefly industrial archaeological and military/naval heritage sites, and also significant yet poorly understood prehistoric, Romano-British and medieval dimensions to the resource, has no coherent synthesis identifying the significance of the known and potential resource. The lack of a coherent understanding of the resource is a constraint on the effectiveness of the conservation and management decisions made by English Heritage and the LPA.

WA Heritage have been appointed by English Heritage to carry out an assessment of the heritage resource of the Isle of Portland. The primarily desk-based project will collate information relating to the land and marine based archaeological and cultural heritage assets from a study area which includes the island, Portland Harbour Breakwaters and 500m coastal zone around the island. Information will be collated from a range of sources including Dorset County Sites and Monuments Record and English Heritage National Monuments Record Centre as well as other local and national sources.

The report will present a detailed review of the archaeological and historical development of the island defined by chronological period. Accompanying this review will be a synthesis of the resource which may be approached thematically, geographically or chronologically in best response to the nature of the collated data. The synthesis will aim to identify the significance of the known and potential resource and identify any gaps in the knowledge base. The textual report will be accompanied by a gazetteer of the information used and a set of phased mapping to clearly and accurately depict the location and extent of resource for each period. A map of the designated resource will also be produced.  The results of the study will be managed and produced from a stand alone HBSMR linked to a GIS enabling digital information to be fed back into the Dorset SMR (as appropriate) as digital records.  

This page was published on 10/01/2008