Portland Museum is a local museum

Museum

A museum is an institution that cares for a collection of artifacts and other objects of scientific, artistic, cultural, or historical importance and makes them available for public viewing through exhibits that may be permanent or temporary. Most large museums are located in major cities...

 on the Isle of Portland

Isle of Portland

The Isle of Portland is a limestone tied island, long by wide, in the English Channel. Portland is south of the resort of Weymouth, forming the southernmost point of the county of Dorset, England. A tombolo over which runs the A354 road connects it to Chesil Beach and the mainland. Portland and...

, located on the Jurassic Coast

Jurassic Coast

The Jurassic Coast is a World Heritage Site on the English Channel coast of southern England. The site stretches from Orcombe Point near Exmouth in East Devon to Old Harry Rocks near Swanage in East Dorset, a distance of ....

 in Dorset

Dorset

Dorset , is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The county town is Dorchester which is situated in the south. The Hampshire towns of Bournemouth and Christchurch joined the county with the reorganisation of local government in 1974...

, southern England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. It is at the southern end of the village of Easton, close to Church Ope Cove

Church Ope Cove

Church Ope Cove is a small secluded beach on the sheltered eastern side of the Isle of Portland in Dorset, southern England. The beach has many unusual features for the Isle of Portland. To access the beach there is a path which runs through a wood and a pirate graveyard next to the remains of...

.

The museum was founded by Marie Stopes

Marie Stopes

Marie Carmichael Stopes was a British author, palaeobotanist, campaigner for women's rights and pioneer in the field of birth control...

 and opened in 1930. The cottage where the museum is located was the inspiration behind the novel The Well-Beloved

The Well-Beloved

The Well-Beloved is a novel by Thomas Hardy, published in 1897.The main setting of the novel was the Isle of Slingers, a caricature of the Isle of Portland in Dorset, southern England....

, written by Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy, OM was an English novelist and poet. While his works typically belong to the Naturalism movement, several poems display elements of the previous Romantic and Enlightenment periods of literature, such as his fascination with the supernatural.While he regarded himself primarily as a...

, a friend of Marie Stopes.It shows examples of the Island's rich archaeology from the Stone Ages onwards.

Portland Museum is housed in two 17th-century thatched cottages built of stone. It presents the history of Portland Stone

Portland stone

Portland stone is a limestone from the Tithonian stage of the Jurassic period quarried on the Isle of Portland, Dorset. The quarries consist of beds of white-grey limestone separated by chert beds. It has been used extensively as a building stone throughout the British Isles, notably in major...

, the Jurassic Coast, shipwrecks around Portland, and famous people linked with Portland.

The museum has limited opening times at Easter

Easter

Easter is the central feast in the Christian liturgical year. According to the Canonical gospels, Jesus rose from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion. His resurrection is celebrated on Easter Day or Easter Sunday...

and during the summer (May–October).