Corfe Castle from the railway station
By John Welford
@indexer (4852)
Leicester, England
August 20, 2019 5:06am CST
Corfe Castle, in Dorset, has one of the most distinctive profiles of any English castle.
Unlike many castles that are in a far better state of preservation today, Corfe saw plenty of action during its 900+ year history.
The reason for its current condition as a romantic ruin is that it lost out during the English Civil War. In 1645 it was held by Royalist forces and besieged by Parliamentary troops. A piece of subterfuge allowed Parliamentary troops in disguise to gain access to the castle and force the Royalists to surrender. It was later decided that the castle could no longer be a threat to Parliament - or anyone else - so it was "slighted".
Slighting meant placing explosives under one wall of the main keep. When this came down, it invariably took the roof and all the floors with it. Today you can see pieces of masonry that lie at very inclined angles, these having been part of the original fourth wall.
The castle is now under the care of the National Trust and is a very popular tourist attraction.
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2 responses
@JudyEv (382693)
• Rockingham, Australia
21 Aug 19
We saw castles in France that had been partly destroyed in order to harvest the stones for use elsewhere. Such a shame.
@indexer (4852)
• Leicester, England
21 Aug 19
But hardly surprising, given the labour needed to quarry and shape stones for building. In the UK many monasteries and abbeys were abandoned after King Henry VIII's Dissolution in the 1540s. If you look at the farms around where the former abbey buildings were, you will see many barns, walls and houses that were built with the old stones!
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