Portisham, under the bold, furzy hills that rise to the commanding height of Blackdown, appears in The Trumpet Major as the village to which Bob Loveday (who was spasmodically in love with Anne Garland) comes to attach himself to Admiral Hardy for service in the Royal Navy. Notwithstanding the fact that Robert Loveday is merely an imaginary character, the admiral was a renowned hero in real life, and no less a personage than Admiral Sir Thomas Hardy. He lived here, in a picturesque old house just outside the village, and the chimney-like tower on Black Down was erected to his memory. In a garden on the opposite side of the road to Hardy's house is a sundial, inscribed:
JOSEPH HARDY, ESQ.
KINGSTON RUSSELL, LAT. 50° 45'
1769
FUGIO FUGE
Admiral Hardy was born at Kingston Russell, and his old home at Portisham is still in the possession of a descendant on the female side.
From Portisham a walk of four miles leads to Abbotsbury, situated at the verge of the Vale of Wadden and the Chesil Beach. The railway station is about ten minutes' walk from the ancient village, which consists of a few houses picturesquely dotted around the church and scattered ruins of the Abbey of St Peter. The abbey was originally founded in King Knut's reign by Arius, the "house-carl," or steward, to the king, about 1044, in the reign of Edward the Confessor. The building at the south-east corner of the church is part of the old abbey. It is now used as a carpenter's shop, but an old stoup can be seen in the corner. At the farther end of this building is a cell in which the last abbot is said to have been starved to death.
A gate-house porch and a buttressed granary of fourteenth-century architecture, still used as a barn, and a pond, with a tree-covered island, the ancient fish-pond of the monks, are all that remain to remind us of the historic past of this spot.