Goodness Grays!

Corfe Castle may be a ruin, but it is impressive none the less. It embodies over 1,000 years of history having been a Saxon stronghold, a Norman fortress, and a royal palace. When the parliamentarians finally took control of the castle in 1645, they used gunpowder to destroy the building. It took more than six months work, and when they ran out of gunpowder they taxed the locals in order to buy more! We spent hours walking around the ruins, taking in the information on the display boards scattered around the place and listening to recordings of what life was like here when the castle was still in use. Festivals and workshops are regularly held here and Corfe Castle village is over run with tourists in the summer. So a spring visit is an ideal time.

We started our day out in true English fashion with tea and cakes in a local teashop (is it jam then cream, or cream then jam on scones?) then visited the ruins where Lawrence almost got his head stuck in the stocks!

The castle towers over the village and you can see the Swanage Railway in the valley below. A bit of sunshine would have helped this photo, but it was not to be. So here are a selection of photos of Corfe Castle and the surrounding countryside.

In addition to the castle ruins and the cake shops, Corfe Castle has a generous choice of pubs to visit! So this is where we finished our trip before catching the steam train back to Swanage.

For those more adventurous (fit?) types, there are plenty of walks on the hills around the castle, and one can even walk all the way back to Swanage.