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The Park Estate
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This area is dominated by a large post-war housing estate. Many of the houses were built to provide homes for Royal Navy employees working at the Naval Base which closed in the mid-1990s.
This area is home to the campus for St George’s Infant and Tophill Junior schools. Also there was a large secondary school originally named The Royal Manor Arts Academy. This was merged into The Isle of Portland Aldridge Academy before closing. The pupils were moved to Southwell to be incorporated in the Atlantic Academy Portland. At the time of writing (April 2018) the site is deserted and awaiting disposal.
The school’s playing fields were excavated to reveal a large Roman villa.
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Please click here for a detailed late Victorian map. Click the BACK button on your browser to return to this page. Notice on this old map the location of ‘Merry Well’.
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ROYAL MANOR ARTS COLLEGE [1]
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SHEEP AND CATTLE POUND [2]
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A GOLD PAINTED LETTER BOX [3]
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A ROMAN VILLA [4]
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St GEORGE’S SCHOOL [5]
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HOUSING ESTATE [6]
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ANOTHER OF MY HOBBIES
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ROYAL MANOR ARTS ACADEMY [1]
The three pictures below show the closed college buildings in 2016.
The Royal Manor Arts College is now a component of Atlantic Academy Portland, the Portland-wide school system. Please learn about this organisation here.
There is a very informative history of this college here. Briefly, the college was a secondary school which opened in 1927 as Tophill School. There was a major expansion in the 1980s after which it served pupils aged from 11 to 16 until its closure in 2016.
The teaching staff and pupils moved to the IPACA building at Southwell in 2016 - see here for pictures of the Southwell establishment.
It is possible that the redundant college buildings will be demolished and new houses built on the site.
Below are a few old photographs of students at Tophill School before it became Royal Manor School. More details about these and other old pictures, including the names of the pupils shown, can be found here.
The Netball Team representing Tophill School in 1949
Tophill School 1930. Note St. George’s Church in the background.
Tophill Junior School, 1931/2, Class III
Mr Martindale (Headmaster) and Miss Warren (Teacher) are in the picture.
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A SHEEP AND CATTLE POUND [2]
The Portland Sheep Pound, pictured above in 1989, lies just to the east of Weston Street and south of the site of the closed Royal Manor Arts College. The pound was moved to its present position when the nearby housing estate was built.
This photograph shows the pound in 2016 with a very ugly gas control building stuck right in front of it.
The ancient water source of Merry Well was once close to where the pound now stands.
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A GOLD PAINTED LETTER BOX [3]
A letter box in Weston was painted gold in 2012 to celebrate the achievement of paralympic athlete Helena Lucas who lives nearby - please click here for the story.
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A ROMAN VILLA [4]
When work started on a new playing field for the Royal Manor Arts College in about 2004 a large Roman villa complex was discovered. This has been excavated and many interesting discoveries have been made.
Above we see the site after the initial clearance in 2004 and below the work progressing in 2006.
The area has now been covered over as shown below.
Information about this archaeological excavation can be found here. It now believed that the site had been occupied over many centuries by Iron Age, Roman and Mediaeval Portlanders.
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St GEORGE’S SCHOOL [5]
St George’s Primary School lies on the eastern boundary of Weston and close to Easton. The school’s website is here. The school was rated “Good” in the 2016 OFSTED Report - please click here to read the report.
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HOUSING ESTATE [6]
The Park Estate is a large collection of rather boring houses and bungalows. I have found nothing of interest to say about it.
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ANOTHER OF MY HOBBIES
At the age of 75 I started a new hobby - writing and publishing books. These are available as paperbacks from Amazon - please click here for details.
Keywords Royal Manor School Atlantic Academy Portland Merry Well Sheep Pound Roman Villa Portland Dorset
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