Etched in Stone

An abandoned quarry becomes a statue gallery

A climbing figure etched into the quarry rockface

Portland Bill is a narrow windswept promontory that juts into the English Channel from the Dorset coast. It is best known for Portland stone, from which some of London’s best known buildings and monuments, including St. Paul’s Cathedral, have been constructed. (Portland cement, which you may have heard of, got its name because it matched the colour of Portland Stone).

In 1983, one of Portland’s abandoned quarries, called Tout Quarry, began a transformation when sculptors—some well-established and some just starting out—were invited to use the rocks and rockfaces as canvases for their craft.

A child plays amongst the statues

Today, it is a popular tourist attraction, where families wander the rough trails trying to spy the dozens of sculptures strewn apparently randomly around the 40-acre site.

The Roy Dog

A particular favourite among the children is the The Roy Dog, memorializing a (hopefully) mythical man-eating beast legendary in the region. The sculptor, a local stone-carver named Damien Briggs, used resins to give the animal different covered eyes, an element of the traditional story.

Many of the sculptures in the park are more whimsical than attempts at great art.

A stone mermaid

But that is part of the fun. People who spend large amounts of money to commission statues to decorate great buildings may not be looking for whimsy. The quarry frees sculptors to do what they want.

A pillar apparently fallen out of a wall fully formed

In between the permanent installations, as it were, there’s evidence of kids getting into the spirit. This image of a girl seems to have been put together from stone chips lying about the quarry floor.

The most famous sculpture in the park is Antony Gormley’s Still Falling. Gormley, if you haven’t heard of him, as I had not, is well-known in the UK for his original and audacious sculptures, many of them in unusual places. The most famous, as I now realize most people here know, is the enormous “Angel of the North”, said to be one world’s most viewed sculptures because of its size and proximity to major roadways.

My first reaction when I saw Gormley’s Still Falling in the quarry was that it was a reference to the famous “Falling Man” photo from 9/11, which captured the descent of one of the victims of the World Trade Center attack who had apparently hurled himself to his death rather than face the fire in the building.

Still Falling by Anthony Gormley

But it turns out that Gormley’s work dates from 1981, two decades before the terror attack. I suppose there must be some deep human chord struck by both the sculpture and the photo that makes them each so resonant.