A stark limestone peninsula jutting south into the English Channel, connected to Weymouth by the narrow neck of Chesil Beach. Portland is unlike anywhere else in Dorset: flat-topped, windswept, quarried down to bare rock in places, with a fierce sense of its own identity. Portlanders have traditionally regarded themselves as separate from the mainland.
Portland Castle, at the northern end of the peninsula, is one of the best-preserved of Henry VIII's coastal forts. The lighthouse at Portland Bill, at the southern tip, marks one of the most treacherous stretches of water in the Channel — the tidal race off the Bill can run at eight knots. The views from the Bill on a clear day reach to Devon in the west and the Isle of Wight to the east.