Portland Festival of Stone - Stone Carving Weekend
Tout Quarry Sculpture Park & Nature Reserve, Access via Wide Street / Tradecroft, Tradecroft Industrial Estate, Portland, Dorset, DT5 2LN
Using different sizes and shapes of Portland stone - the Bedrock of the Jurassic Coast, you will be supported to create your own stone carvings, recorded by a photographer and video artist, that will 'contribute as a moment in time' to a collaborative 'Green Corridor' pathway spanning 150 million years.
Portland Festival of Stone is for all ages, students, children and families - offering the best tuition from Tutors from the Portland Sculpture Quarry Trust and Yeoman stone carver from The Worshipful Company of Masons, where you can experience using a range of hand carving tools to see your ideas emerge.
Portland Festival of Stone will also take place at the Drill Hall where there is a geological time line and in PSQTs open air workshop situated in the heart of Tout Quarry Sculpture Park & Nature Reserve, a 400 year old naturally regenerated environment, quarried by hand since the time of Sir Christopher Wren, and saved in 1983 by the Portland Sculpture & Quarry Trust from further mineral extraction
'Tout' is old English for ‘Lookout’, and the quarry overlooks the great sweep of Chesil Beach. It is the best and last example from what was once over 100 quarries on the island all worked by hand. You can enter the quarry via the Memory Stones, opposite to the Heights Hotel at Priory Corner, to discover artists site-specific work where sculpture, geology, ecology and quarrying heritage meet.
Tout Quarry Sculpture Park & Nature Reserve, Access via Wide Street / Tradecroft, Tradecroft Industrial Estate, Portland, Dorset, DT5 2LN
Outdoor clothing / footwear recommended. The open air workshop in Tout Quarry has Tarpaulin cover if needed. Tout Quarry workshop is within short walking distance or 8 mins from the Heights Hotel View Cafe and car park DT5 2EN. Please phone for disability or vehicle access if needed.
We provide stone, tools, pencils and safety glasses, or you can bring your own. All ages welcome. Free event. Donations invited. Carvings can be taken home and will be photo / videoed to create a Green Corridor storyline on themes of lifeforms and inspiration from your imagination.