Portland Museum was founded by Dr Marie Stopes the famous birth control pioneer in 1929 she subsequently gifted the cottages to the people of Portland in 1930.

Portland Museum regularly features interesting events and you’ll find the details on The Portland Museum website.

The museum is housed in two, 17th century, picturesque thatched Portland Stone cottages, nestling above Church Ope Cove.

Thomas Hardy was a friend of Marie Stopes and often visited the cottages. Inspired by one of these cottages, Hardy, made it the home of Avice, the heroine in “The Wellbeloved”, one of his last novels.

The museum hosts a rich collection of historical treasures going back to Roman times and beyond and an impressive collection of fossils discovered on the island the most spectacular of which is a virtually complete dinosaur skeleton.

The museums Garden’s an ideal place to sit and enjoy a picnic, or refreshments and snacks, now available from the Museum shop. The garden includes a collection of local fossils, ammonites, fossilised wood and other local masonry and artefacts – and the casing of the famous Portland Bomb!