The R-word?

Some pictures of Tout Quarry Scultpure Park in Portland, Dorset.  About 40 mins drive from where I live. 

Some wiki-lite: Much of the stone which was used to construct St Paul's and Buckingham Palace, came from Portland.  Some even travelled further afield, across the Atlantic, where it was used to construct the United Nations buildings in New York.  The excavations left vast scars over the landscape.  The quarry fell into disuse circa 1920, then in 1983 was reopened as a Sculpture Park.

'Still Falling' - Antony Gormley (1983, incised work)

'Hearth' - Timothy Shutter (1989)

For you rock lovers, Purbeck Stone is Jurassic.  However, I didn't see any sign of dinosaurs, or a bespectacled Jeff Goldblum.  Boom boom.

This wasn't strictly the R-word (research) as the late, great Iain Banks put it.  But it was a fascinating day out.  Words started appearing shortly afterwards, which eventually became a story, so in retrospect...

Chesil Beach, looking towards Weymouth