Pre-pandemic my mother bought a house on the Isle of Portland overlooking Chesil Beach and Deadman’s Bay. The backyard was festooned with garden-centre sculptures, painted by a local artist. The former owner had fashioned a nightclub in his garage called Smirkles, and decorated it with glitter-tape and painted plates.

I documented the house and its surroundings during a liminal period before my mother moved in. At this time, I was reading Thomas Hardy’s The Well-Beloved, and was interested in the repeated motifs of ghostliness, transience, and the idealisation and objectification of women. In the years since, I have continued to photograph the island.

Seven of the nine Dorset neighbourhoods that fall into the top 20% nationally for income deprivation are within Weymouth and Portland, with Fortuneswell, where my mother lives, being listed as the most deprived area in Dorset.

Portland has a history of having the mainland’s undesirables forced upon it, including prisons, a contentious refugee prison-style ship, rabbits, and now a waste incinerator. Rejected by the local planning authority, the incinerator is being pushed through by central government. My mother has single-handedly raised vast sums of money to enable the islanders to take the decision to the High Court. Those with vested interest in the incinerator may consider my mother in a similar way to Jocelyn considering Avice – surprised at the tenacity and personality of a mere local woman.

This photobook is an ongoing project that brings together my photographs and quotes from The Well-Beloved as I explore themes of gender inequality set against the growing inequality seen in many UK coastal towns.

I originally created the photobook in 2019 as part of a wider project exploring the archives in Portland Museum (located in Avice’s cottage). I expanded it in 2025 with new images and further extracts from The Well-Beloved. Hardy also revisited The Well-Beloved, which was the second version - the first being The Pursuit of the Well-Beloved, published 5 years before in a serialised form.