The Nothe Peninsula

The Nothe peninsular juts out into Weymouth Bay and forms the southern side of Weymouth Harbour and the northern point of Portland Roads.  It has a magnificent view of the Dorset Coast, the town of Weymouth, Chesil and the Isle of Portland.  Viewers standing on its height might have witnessed Roman warships bringing troops and supplies during the Roman invasion of Dorset and they might have seen the flashes of the guns of the Spanish Armada during the battle off Portland and cheered as captured Spanish galleons were towed into Weymouth.  They certainly would have helped to light the warning beacon, permanently sited on the headland.

Guns had been placed on the Nothe since 1543, when a master gunner had been employed by Weymouth Corporation.  There are further references to batteries surrounded by ramparts in 1622 and 1625.  During the Civil War a small fort was built on the headland which changed hands several times before being abandoned after Cromwell's victory (two Royalists were hung on the Nothe during these skirmishes).  Eighteenth-century reports refer to the poor state of the ordnance of some fourteen cannon, only two being in a fit state to be fired. All these emplacements had been sited to protect Weymouth, but the Victorian fort had as its prime task the defence of the new harbour created by the enclosure of Portland Roads.  The defence of Weymouth was only an incidental responsibility.