Driven by an insatiable urge to discover secret places, mostly hidden away from the general public, behind security fences and scanned by security cameras. Or deep in the undergrowth, reclaimed by nature and more than enough of a challenge to access these places by braving the slicing and piercing of the Brambles and Bracken.The Forbidden City is large area on the east side of Portland in Dorset. It has a mysterious and rather creepy dystopian collection of buildings, ranging from Victorian military emplacements to a more recent military/emergency services training area. The name "Forbidden City" was given by the locals because it has, for over a century, been closed to the public. Originally access was stopped when the Common Land was taken from Portlanders to expand the Royal Naval Dockyard.
The site covers quite a large area with a gun battery on one side, with 4 rusted-out gun emplacements and all the administrative buildings on the other side of the overgrown road that runs through the site. The accommodation building like many of the buildings around it, have been used post war-time for training the emergency services and the military with extreme scenarios such as riot or terrorism situations. So many of the rooms are covered in black soot from the staged fires that were placed in different areas.
Many hidden details of a bygone era with woodburning stoves, used to provide heat for hot water and kit storage cupboards with their metal racks still in place.
Further up the road from the main building there was a narrow set of crooked steps made from concrete paving slabs. The first 20 or so steps, nearly totally overgrown with long grass and with a rusted handrail on 1 side, led to a clearer set of steps that were hidden behind the mess of weeds. Another 40 steps and the Officers house is a small square stone built building with another square room built from wood on the top. The first thing I noticed is that there was absolutely no sign of any modern (post 80's) graffiti in this building and felt like no one had been there since the last Officer left.
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