Location
United Kingdom
50° 30' 57.006" N, 50° 30' 57.006" E

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Field Notes

QinietiQ - Portland Bill. Compass Test Centre - operating and testing. Sea and Land Magnetic Facilities. Site owned and operated by QinetiQ. Formerly the Admiralty Compass Observatory.

Approached on the main road and heading towards the lighthouse at Portland Bill. The site is on your right behind the car park, and the end of the road. It is fenced on all sides, and on the seaward side, has signage warning of risk of death, we assume from the cliffs and not the research. The site was surrounded by holiday makers who were acting in a stoic manner as the wind blew in from the sea. The site has been used by the MOD for many years, and was a key site for co-ordinating research undertaken by Porton Down in the Weymouth Area. Notes on this can be found in document 'dorset bacteria trials - INDEPENDENT REVIEW OF THE POSSIBLE HEALTH HAZARDS OF THE LARGE-SCALE RELEASE OF BACTERIA DURING THE DORSET DEFENCE TRIALS Professor Brian G. Spratt FRS, Wellcome Trust Centre for the Epidemiology of Infectious Disease, University of Oxford. Details are in The Mike Kenner Archive. Not far from here, key parts of the classic british science fiction file 'These are the Damned' was made in 1961.