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Filmed in black and white at Portland, Dorset in 1953 together with a 1983 colour video video interview with quarryman , Harry Hounsell (seen in the 1953 film). Also shows one of Harry's unique matchstick models of the small Thames spritty-barges that used to transfer several hundred tons of stone from Portland to London.
This historic film shows a remarkable survival of work-chants and shanties, employing wooden cranes and "Portland Jacks" that could help answer part of the puzzle of moving large stone monoliths at Avebury and Stonehenge. Companies of men working in the 1950s, in privately-owned quarries on the edge of the cliffs, the process of "reaming-up" was filmed in the very quarry that once supplied London with stone for St Paul's Cathedral and Portland Place (B&W 1953 & Colour 1983/ 66 mins)- Listen to the CD FTX- 203
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