Nicodemus Knob
Nicodemus Knob is a rough, lozenge-shaped 30-feet pillar left as a landmark quarrying relic at East Cliff on the Isle of Portland, Dorset, England. It is found close to the Verne High Angle Battery, Fancy's Family Farm (on site of ex-Portland Rotor Radar Station), the Young Offenders Institution and The Old Engine Shed, near East Weares and The Grove village. It is similar to the landmark quarrying pillar of Pulpit Rock, found at Portland Bill.[1]
History
The Nicodemus Knob stack was left standing after the surrounding area was quarried away to provide stone for the Verne Citadel and the Portland Breakwater - both major projects of the late 19th century. The limestone stack stands 10 metres high on East Cliff. It marks the extent to which the convicts excavated the stone from the Admiralties Quarries for use in the construction of the great government works. Some six million tonnes of stone was quarried from the area, most of it supplied by free labour of the convicts of the nearby Portland Prison.[2]
The reason for the stack being left is uncertain. Some theories state that it was a landmark for shipping, whilst other theories include it being a memorial to the quarry workers who moved so much material from the site, or that it was simply to highlight the large amount of stone taken from the area, recording the original natural ground level.[3]
Area
Close to the stack are flat rectangular areas which were once used at Royal Naval Dockyard's playing fields. After Portland Port Ltd acquired the land in the mid-1990s, it was used as an industrial storage site.[4] This was still in existence in 2006, but was later stripped and all storage removed. As of 2014, this site still remains entirely empty.[3]
In the 2010 book "Bird Observatories of Britain and Ireland", the area of Nicodemus Knob is noted to also have "a series of small walled fields", whilst the area is "botanically rich and often holds migrant birds".[5]
References
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- ↑ http://www.southampton.ac.uk/~imw/Portland-Quarries.htm
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