Corfe Castle

It's Friday again which means it is time to join Amy at Love Made My Home with a Five On Friday post. 


Yesterday my DH and I enjoyed a brilliant day out on the Isle of Purbeck visiting Swanage and Corfe Castle so today I thought I would show you some images of Corfe Castle. This area is one of our all-time favourite places and we have visited many times over the years but we haven't actually been into the Castle itself for a long time so decided it was time we revisited.

Corfe Castle is a fortification standing above a village with the same name which was built to guard a gap between the Purbeck hills. The first castle buildings were built of wood and it is here in 978 AD that young King Edward was reputedly murdered on the orders of his step-mother so that her son Ethelred the Unready could become King of England. 

In the latter half of the 11th Century the castle was rebuilt in stone by William the Conqueror and it grew in importance in the reign of King John for whom it became a favourite hunting residence. 


























It was besieged by King Stephen in the civil war with the Empress Matilda and later in the Civil War of the 17th century when it was famously held for the Royalists by Lady Bankes, her husband Sir John Bankes had purchased the castle in 1635 but he died in 1644.

Lady Bankes led the defence of the castle for weeks until February 1646 when an act of betrayal let Parliamentarians into the stronghold. After the siege the castle was blown up with gunpowder so that it could never be used as a stronghold again. 

The Bankes family continued to own the Castle until 1982 when it was bequeathed to the National Trust.