The Isle of Portland is a funny old place.

If you’re driving there, you’ll think you've arrived when you leave the causeway behind and begin the ridiculously steep climb up the hill onto the island. Glance behind, and you'll be confronted with a view of Weymouth and Chesil Beach, with the Fleet separating the two, and the rest of Dorset receding in your rear-view mirror.

But you're not there yet. If you're heading for Portland Bill and the iconic lighthouse that features in Dorset Crime book 8, The Lighthouse Murders, you've got almost an hour of driving ahead of you.

So when I decided to spend a day exploring the island in the winter of 2022-23, it was with a real sense of adventure.

I set off early, approaching the Fleet from the west and pausing to admire the beauty of the sun rising over Chesil Beach.

I arrived at the causeway, passed the vast harbour on my left, leaving Weymouth behind, and began to climb.

The thing is, Portland is a fascinating shape, in cross- section. At its northern end it rises precipitously, affording spectacular views over Chesil Beach, and then from the top of the hill at Portland Heights, the land slopes much more gradually southwards, until it reaches its tip at Portland Bill. Basically, it's a wedge. 

So I continued to climb, glancing occasionally to one side as the road switch-backed up the hill, and admiring the view. It was a clear, crisp December day and the vast expanse of coastline was laid out beneath me, to the east, Weymouth, to the west, the long slender finger of Chesil Beach. At the top I took the first turnoff I could find and parked my car by the side of the road. At last I could admire the view without risking an accident, and take some photos.

But I had no plans to dawdle. The key location in The Lighthouse Murders was, of course, going to be the lighthouse. So I pressed on.

And on. And on.

The Isle of Portland was bigger than I had expected. And much more 'normal', or what normal looks like to a Brummie like me.

Instead of driving through quaint villages made of local stone, like the ones on the Isle of Purbeck, I was passing relatively modern-looking towns and villages, with the kind of architecture I'd expect to see in parts of Birmingham, not Dorset. And as far as I could see, there was little sign of the iconic Portland stone. Maybe they shipped it all to London, to make pavements.

Eventually I made it to my destination, but not without some interesting finds en-route (all of which made it into the book).

As I approached the lighthouse, two landmarks struck me. The first was a lone building on the approach to the lighthouse, along a track to the left-hand side, towards the sea. I later researched this building and discovered that it's a bird observatory. Needless to say, it became a key location in the scene of the second murder (i.e. not the one at the lighthouse).

The second was the array of wooden huts between the road and the beach, separating the observatory from the lighthouse. These fascinated me. They looked a lot like beach huts, but they were nowhere near any beach – instead they were perched on the headland on one of Dorset's most inhospitable stretches of coastline. And they weren't all looking out to sea, arranged in rows like the beach huts in Weymouth or Swanage beaches. Instead they were clustered in small groups, almost like a housing estate or a holiday park in miniature.

Needless to say, they had to find their way into the book. So after my visit to the lighthouse (of which more shortly), I wandered back along the clifftop and made sure I captured some video footage of them. And I later spoke to some locals and learned that they are in fact old coastguard’s cottages, now used as beach huts – or the Portland equivalent. They belong to Portland residents and act as a base for days out, leisure time, and socialising.

(On top of one of the windiest clifftops on the southern English coast. They're hardy folks, those Portlanders.)

But now, it was finally time for the lighthouse. I got lucky – not only was it open, but they were also doing guided tours.

The tour guides at Portland Lighthouse were incredibly friendly and informative. They gave me plenty of background information which informed the book, even if it didn't make it directly into the text. And learning about how they worked gave me the inspiration for a suspect who volunteers for Trinity House (the organisation that runs the lighthouse) and is able to smuggle the body into the lighthouse.

You see why I don't tell tour guides what I'm doing?

My research at the lighthouse and the area around it was complete, but Portland still had plenty more to offer. Because it's a crime writer's idea of heaven. Desolate, isolated, eccentric, and varied, but only an hour’s drive from Bournemouth. 

And the perfect place to hide a body, right?

Certainly the perfect place for a research expedition, or for a fascinating walk if you ever get to visit Portland. I then spent an intriguing couple of hours exploring the old quarries.

Venturing down tunnels and walkways created by quarrying, climbing over vast boulders, marvelling at the variety of plants and animals that have made the quarries their home. It's a fascinating place, which was deserted when I visited, and in its way just as interesting as a nature reserve like Arne.

So: Portland. An island (or peninsula if you're being pedantic) full of surprises. And full of exquisite locations for a crime novel. It's not a place many would think to visit, but I wholeheartedly recommend it.