Rufus Castle

The remaining castle appears to have been the keep of a stronghold, the foundation of which was much above the top of the church tower of St Andrews which lay in the valley below.

The pentagonal tower of the castle has late Medieval gun holes but rests on an earlier foundation to the north and stepped plinth to the west which may have been a 12th-century keep.

[1][2] Remains include parts of the keep, sections of wall with gun ports and a 19th-century round-arched bridge across Church Ope Road.

[4] Rufus Castle looks out over the Shambles sandbank, approximately 3 miles (5 km) out to sea, one of the most feared navigational hazards in the area.

In ancient times for defence against attack, taxes were raised on the island to construct Portland's first castle.

Rufus Castle was reportedly built for William II, although the structure seen standing in ruins today is not of that date and the.

[6] In 1142, Robert, Earl of Gloucester, had captured the castle from King Stephen on behalf of Empress Maud.

It is generally presumed that Rufus castle is the site of any work that may have resulted from these licences and any remains that may date from the period exist only at the foundation level or have been lost to cliff erosion.

[8] The politician and writer John Penn built the adjacent Pennsylvania Castle, a Gothic Revival mansion overlooking Church Ope Cove, between 1797 and 1800.

With the aid of the English Heritage grant, the project first involved the investigation of the condition of the castle and the implementation of the first stage of recommended repairs.

[16][17] The castle, constructed in the form of a pentagon, has 7-foot-thick (2.1 m) walls to the landward elevations pierced by numerous medieval gun ports.

There are no longer any trace remains of the "steppes of stone" that were referred to in Gorse's Antiquities and Coker's Dorset; the steps connected the castle and the old church of St Andrew.