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| The view of Corfe Castle from just outside our B&B |
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| Morton's House Hotel built in 1590. |
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| The sitting room at Morton's House Hotel |
On a dark afternoon we drove into the little village of Corfe. It is a charming place. Everything is slightly too small. The village's doors, windows, even the houses themselves with their grey stone and slate roofs were built so long ago that they seem to have shrunk as the centuries progressed. It goes without saying that we loved the place. To our delight there was a tiny door the unbroken wall of stone with a for sale sign. Eagerly we looked up the little cottages asking price but found it equal to our large house in Australia; a holiday home in Corfe is still a little way off it seems. Instead of settling in this ideal English village we took rooms at Morton's House Hotel, a grand old 16th century manor now turned luxury B&B. It is an inviting place with such friendly staff. The icing on the cake has to be the cosy paneled sitting room with its roaring fire and very old and beautifully carved surround.
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| One of the towers of Corfe wedged against another section of wall |
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| Corfe Castle seen from the village below |
The next morning we awoke to wet streets. The rain was very mild so we decided to go into Swanage to find some antique shops. We didn't end up buying anything but we did get caught in a torrential downpour whilst strolling down the pier.
Later that day and a new change of clothes later we were up at the castle, now a romantic and subsiding ruin. It's history is just as varied and wonderful as any I have read so far and wandering around one gets the sense that at any minute one or other of the precariously balanced stone structures leaning at various worrying angles could slip down off the steep hillside and be lost forever. I think it may be this sense of imminent disaster coupled with the past ones that brings a kind of energy to this forlorn and striking place. There is enough of it left that one can imagine it as it had once been and there is also something surreal in the enormous chunks of wall still intact that balance one against the other while huge sections still stand guard at the top of the hill.
