The surrounding coast of Portland, namely Portland Bill and Chesil Beach, have been notorious for the many vessels that became shipwrecked in the area over the centuries.[4][5] After years of local petitions to Trinity House, the organisation agreed for a lighthouse to be built at Portland Bill. George I granted the patent in 1716.[4][5][6] That year, it was announced that Trinity House had 'caus'd to be erected two round Light-Houses of Stone upon Portland, in the County of Dorset, distant about two Thirds of a Mile from the Bill of Portland'.[7] This one was built at Branscombe Hill, and the other, the Old Lower Lighthouse, on lower land.[5] Designed as leading lights to guide ships between Portland Race and the Shambles sandbank, they shone out for the first time on 29 September 1716.[8][4] Initially, both were fire lights.[7]
Although they had been privately built, Trinity House took over responsibility for the lights on finding them poorly maintained, in 1752.[9] In 1788 Trinity House had Argand lamps installed within the higher lighthouse, which was the first in England to be fitted with them.[8][10] It was fitted with fourteen lamps arranged in two rows of seven, with a polished spherical reflector set behind each lamp.[11] The lamps were designed by Thomas Rogers.[12]
In 1824 Portland High Light was improved by Trinity House: a three-sided revolving apparatus was installed (with Argand lamps and reflectors), 'each face exhibiting its greatest light every two minutes';[13] however in 1835, following the establishment of Start Point Lighthouse with its revolving Fresnel lenses, Portland High was again made a fixed light (matching the Low Light, which had remained fixed throughout).[14]
Both Portland lighthouses were rebuilt in 1869,[8][10] and provided with large (first-order) fixed optics designed and built by James Chance.[15] At the turn of the 20th century, Trinity House made plans to build a new lighthouse at Bill Point to replace both current lighthouses.[10][4][16] The new lighthouse was completed in 1905,[5] and the original two lighthouses were then auctioned.[5][17] In 1923 the lighthouse was purchased by the palaeobotanist, campaigner for eugenics, pioneer of birth control and Portland Museum founder Marie Stopes as a summer residence.[18]
During World War II, the Royal Observer Corps used the tower as a lookout.[8][19] During the early 1960s the lighthouse was run as a restaurant.[20] The lighthouse and its cottages were refurbished in 1981. With a total of four cottages within its grounds, both the Branscombe Lodge Cottage and Stopes Cottage are now available as holiday lets.[21]
^ abcdMorris, Stuart (2016). Portland: an illustrated history (revised and updated colour ed.). Wimborne Minster, Dorset: The Dovecote Press. ISBN9780995546202. OCLC985760298.
