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“Portland as I knew it was a heart-breaking, soul-enslaving, brain-destroying hell upon earth. The tone of the officers’ voices, their curt, dictatorial and offensive manner, their sneering laughs and gibes struck me as being in consonance with the place itself…”
(Jabez Balfour, former MP for Burnley, sentenced to 14 years of penal servitude;18 months on Portland; from The Book of Portland, Gibraltar of Wessex, Rodney Legg, Halsgrove, 2006, p. 97).
"In 1848 a final effort to make of Portland a colossal trophy of the miseries of civilisation was attended with success, for a convict prison, capable of housing 700 convicts, was founded here. There are mediaeval dungeons which are picturesque, and modern prisons which have some pretence to stateliness, but the builders on Portland wished to show the world the blank unattractiveness of gaol life, and in this good purpose they have succeeded well. Thus it has come about that to the taste of some Portland 'is one of the most ugly sights to be seen in the world'...The prison quarries are a dismal matter of stiff walls, set with many sentry-boxes and armed sentries, together with depressed companies of men in yellow jackets, knee-breeches, and Glencarry caps, slashed with the broad arrow".
Sir Frederick Treves, Highways and Byways of Dorset, 1906
Update, February 2013: The Verne Prison and Jailhouse Cafe
"In 1848 a final effort to make of Portland a colossal trophy of the miseries of civilisation was attended with success, for a convict prison, capable of housing 700 convicts, was founded here. There are mediaeval dungeons which are picturesque, and modern prisons which have some pretence to stateliness, but the builders on Portland wished to show the world the blank unattractiveness of gaol life, and in this good purpose they have succeeded well. Thus it has come about that to the taste of some Portland 'is one of the most ugly sights to be seen in the world'...The prison quarries are a dismal matter of stiff walls, set with many sentry-boxes and armed sentries, together with depressed companies of men in yellow jackets, knee-breeches, and Glencarry caps, slashed with the broad arrow".
Sir Frederick Treves, Highways and Byways of Dorset, 1906
Update, February 2013: The Verne Prison and Jailhouse Cafe
It seems almost inappropriate to say "I'm looking forward to going back to Portland".
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