Qualla: Portland Castle

Portland Castle: Introduction

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Edward, Public domain. When Henry VIII annulled his marriage to Catherine of Aragon in 1533, he made a personal enemy of one of the most powerful men in Europe. Catherine was the aunt of Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor. By 1538, France and the Empire had declared an alliance against England, and Pope Paul III was actively encouraging both kingdoms to invade. Henry's response was the most ambitious coastal defence programme any English king had ever attempted. Lord Russell rode along the Dorset coast in 1539 and concluded that two castles were needed to defend the Portland Roads anchorage. One of them, oddly fan-shaped and built of the local grey stone, was finished by 1541 for the sum of £4,964. The invasion never arrived. The castle has been quietly useful ever since.

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Image: Edward | Public domain

Portland Castle: A King's Device

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ajsmith141, CC BY-SA 4.0. Coastal defence had traditionally been left to local lords - the Crown rarely paid for fortifications outside major ports. The 1539 device changed that completely. The king's instructions for the defence of the realm in time of invasion called for a chain of new artillery forts a...

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Image: Ajsmith141 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Portland Castle: Neglect and Renovation

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Michael Dibb, CC BY-SA 2.0. The invasion fear that had built Portland Castle dissolved almost as soon as the masons had finished. Thomas Mervin was appointed the first captain with a tiny garrison of four gunners and two other men. By 1574, just thirty years after its completion, a royal survey reported the...

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Image: Michael Dibb | CC BY-SA 2.0

Portland Castle: Two Sieges and a Trick

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Michael Dibb, CC BY-SA 2.0. In 1643, a small group of Royalist sympathisers gained entry to Portland Castle by pretending to be Parliamentary soldiers - exactly the kind of low-stakes deception that produced most of the smaller engagements of the English Civil War. The castle was now Royalist, and as the Ki...

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Image: Michael Dibb | CC BY-SA 2.0

Portland Castle: A House for Mr Penn

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ajsmith141, CC BY 3.0. By 1779 the castle was a maintenance afterthought, with three caretaker garrisons and eight guns that hadn't been repaired in thirty years. The Napoleonic Wars brought a brief upgrade to fourteen guns, but the castle was already obsolete. After 1815 it became a private house. The...

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Image: Ajsmith141 | CC BY 3.0

Portland Castle: Museum, Garden, Five Centuries

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ajsmith141, CC BY-SA 4.0. During both World Wars the castle housed ordnance stores, offices, and accommodation for British and American troops. After 1945 the War Office finally let go, and in 1949 the building passed to the Ministry of Works. By 1955 it was open to the public. The decision was made to st...

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Image: Ajsmith141 | CC BY-SA 4.0