IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Pennsylvania Road, PORTLAND, DT5 1HT

Pennsylvania Road passing through Wakeham on the Isle of Portland.

Pennsylvania Road is on the left swinging round past the old entrance to Pennsylvania Castle, Church Ope Road and the Portland Museum. The gardens behind the viewpoint contain unusual features Image

The Portland Museum has a gallery, fossil garden and artefacts ranging from ship wrecks, stone carvings, petrified cats and stone coffins.

Situated at the south end of Wakeham, at the corner by Church Ope Road. Notice the large fossil ammonite over the porch - ammonites built into walls are very typical of Portland, which has for centuries been an island of quarries. (For a closer view of the ammonite see http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2420968 ). The porch - not used as the museum entrance - has a doorway on its south side, which seems odd, as a north-facing door would offer better protection from the wind off the sea.

This large ammonite has been mounted in the wall above the Museum's porch. There is a local tradition - on this quarrying island - of building ammonites into walls. There is another large specimen built into a garden wall on the west side of Wakeham, and a more recent example at the Heights Hotel - to name but two. I don't know how long this particular ammonite has been exposed to the weather, but it must once have been an even more striking object than it is now - when the detail at the outer end of the spiral was as crisp as it is nearer the centre. For a more general view of the Museum building, see http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2420871.

Garden ornamentation by Pennsylvania Road, Wakeham, Portland.

A cutmark, as listed in the Benchmark Database: https://www.bench-marks.org.uk/bm45650 , on the corner of the museum. See Image] for a wider view.

The museum is formed from a couple of seventeenth century cottages and funding for the original 1929 museum came from British author, palaeobotanist and campaigner for eugenics and women's rights, Marie Stopes. A benchmark can be found on the corner - see Image

Contains local artifacts and shipwreck items. It is formed from two 16th and 17th century cottages, one of which is featured in Thomas Hardy's book "The Wellbeloved", where it is called "Avice's Cottage". The museum was established in 1932 by Dr Marie Stopes, the birth control pioneer.