Introduction
Posts, this year focus upon arts and crafts and today I look out towards the art of others. I visited the thought-provoking Tout Quarry Sculpture Park & Nature Reserve (subsequently referred to here as the Tout Quarry) on Sunday 22nd March 2026. It was a very enjoyable adventure. These are my reflections and some of the photographs.
Didn’t I have a lovely time the day I went to Portland
I had never visited the tied Dorset Island of Portland before. I had passed close by about thirty years ago whilst walking the Dorset Coastal Path. I didn’t have the legs on that occasion to manage the diversion. Recently, I found myself staying at a Weymouth Holiday Park for a week with Portland looming large on my horizon. The BBC’s Mark Steel’s in Town episode on Portland offered an enticing introduction. After some further internet research, I was strongly attracted to visiting the Tout Quarry. I do find old industrial heritage archaeology evocative and the idea of repurposing a disused quarry as a sculpture park appealed.
On a rural Dorset community bus later in the week, our bus driver told passengers the tale of taking a tourist coach party onto the Isle of Portland. He informed these tourists that they would need to show their passports. He was joking, but somehow there is something unusual about travelling on to this tied island.
I awoke early on the Sunday morning to wonderful March sunlight and clear and very blue skies. I had decided to visit very early, so that I could do some photography, benefiting from the relative peace and early morning light. The regular No.1 bus took me across the water and onto the island. It was then a very steep ascent, I could have walked from where I was staying, but I wanted to conserve energy for seeking out sculptures. As the bus climbed and climbed, we passed old terraced homes which must have originated in the far earlier quarrying era. My homework suggested that the bus stop I needed was Portland Heights. There was a clue in the title; but I had not appreciated how high we were going. My past experience of quarries had been that they were invariably at sea level. By geological necessity this one was located at a high point on the island. After leaving the bus, the views back towards Weymouth and Chesil Beach were amazing.
We are the Memory Stones, we are the Memory Stones
In Brighton, I once heard the ghostly refrain from an outdoor broadcast of the film Quadrophenia – we are the mods, we are the mods! In a similar way, the Memory Stones met me and greeted me as I left the No.1 bus with a friendly, loud and proud echo of the past. Art simultaneously fondly remembered the quarrying heritage, celebrated arriving at Tout Quarry and in an ephemeral and uncertain world suggested the importance of remaining and remembering.
Tout Quarry is close by the Memory Stones, yet its magic is being part of the landscape, rather than being apart from the landscape. So, although I knew I was close, it took some time to stumble across my first sculpture.
An Easter egg hunt for all ages
Tout Quarry is free to visit. This takes me back to the free music festivals of thirty years ago, before music festivals became commercial enterprises. This is more than saving money, it is about engaging with something in a non-transactional way. For myself, Tout Quarry felt like going back to the 1960s and 1970s. The site felt cared for, rather than curated, landscape reimagined, rather than a Disneyesque visitor attraction. I could have spent eight minutes or eight hours there; no stewards, no tickets, just a landscape with added sculptures and ghosts of memories.
The creative and inspired idea not to include signage of each sculpture frustrated me in a strangely positive way. The only sign I saw was a sensible caution about health and safety. Other than that, you had to use your eyes and your legs, you had to engage with the art, it was not purely passive consumption of art. That said, don’t underestimate the joy of discovery. At times my old eyes missed a sculpture right in front of me, sometimes a shift in position and perspective resulted in a revelation. There was plenty of leg work, early on this Sunday morning the only other visitors were casually walking their dogs. I am sure I could have asked them for directions, but that wouldn’t have been as much fun.
Even in March the terrain was very dry and dusty with the overhead sun shining brightly up on this island of stone. As I navigated through passages between rocks I was reminded of the spaghetti westerns from the sixties. I spent a few hours happily photographing sculptures. The sunshine, sculptures and the abandoned landscape made me feel quite trippy as I searched out art in nature.
Sculpture as art of the open air
In doing the preparation for this post, I discovered this Henry Moore quotation.
Sculpture is an art of the open air. Daylight, sunlight, is necessary to it, and for me, its best setting and complement is nature. (Henry Moore)
I took many photographs, mainly in dynamic monochrome, this worked well with the morning sunlight. The majority of sculptures alluded me. The one’s that I did find, which revealed themselves to me were more than enough. I do recommend visiting the learningstone.org site which offers a downloadable map highlighting and labelling sixty of these “hidden” sculptures. Even using this map after the event, it proved difficult to label many of my photographs. In what follows, I have included some photographs which I have been able to identify, as well as, a few wildcards.
Stoned Love
In conclusion, that wonderful Supremes song Stoned Love comes to mind.
Yes, literally Tout Quarry is about a love of stone. Quarrying was dangerous with many lives lost, but there must have been an intimacy with the Portland stone being quarried. There is continuity with the love of stone, creatively and imaginatively continued through the work of the sculptors. In viewing the sculptures, the love of stone is evident. However, there is a strong counter cultural element here. Whilst, Portland stone was quarried to fulfil orders, the sculptures I viewed appeared to freely express what the sculptors chose to express. I found myself in the realms of another state of consciousness. I am not sure you can get stoned on stone, but there is something magical about this place. Stoned love “… will light up, it will surely light up darkened worlds if you just believe.” (The Supremes, 1970). The art and the landscape certainly lightened up my world on my visit and for that I am grateful.
