Corfe Castle

The first view of Corfe Castle from the road across the Purbeck heath gives an immediate impression of something gone wrong. The towers lean at angles that stone towers should not lean. The walls are broken in ways that do not suggest gradual decay but sudden violence. The silhouette on the chalk hilltop — one of the most reproduced images in English heritage photography — is the result not of centuries of weathering but of two days of deliberate destruction carried out by Parliamentary sappers in 1646.

The gap in the Purbeck Hills at Corfe is the only natural break in the chalk ridge that runs the length of the Isle of Purbeck. Whoever controlled this gap controlled all land access to the peninsula — its quarries of Purbeck marble (used in English medieval cathedrals from Salisbury to Canterbury), its coastline, and the sea routes around the headland. William the Conqueror recognised this geography and placed his first stone tower on the natural chalk mound at the gap in the late 11th century. The castle that grew around it over the following five centuries became one of the most strategically significant royal fortresses in southern England.

King John, who had a particular attachment to Corfe, used it as a treasury, a repository for crown regalia, and a prison. His reign saw significant expansion of the castle's walls and towers. Subsequent Plantagenet and later medieval monarchs continued to develop the site, adding the outer gatehouse, the outer ward, and the residential buildings in the inner bailey that made the castle a working royal residence as well as a military fortification. By the time of the Civil War, Corfe Castle had been in continuous occupation and development for six centuries.

The Civil War episode is the one that made Corfe Castle famous. When Sir John Bankes, the castle's owner and Charles I's Attorney General, died in 1644 while away on the king's business, his wife Lady Mary Bankes was left holding the castle against a Parliamentary force that wanted it. She held it twice — in 1643 (when a Royalist relief force helped lift the first siege) and again in 1645–46 — with a skeleton garrison that at its smallest consisted of five men, her daughters, and herself. The second siege ended in treachery: a Royalist officer within the garrison admitted the besiegers through a side gate. Parliamentary forces entered Corfe Castle without the assault that would have been needed to take it by force. Lady Bankes was permitted to leave with the castle's keys; her descendants kept them as a family heirloom.

Parliament's response was the slighting — the systematic partial demolition of castle fortifications to prevent any future military use. Parliamentary miners undermined the foundations of towers and walls, causing them to collapse while still partly standing, their faces still vertical as their bases gave way. The result is the characteristic posture of Corfe's ruins: towers leaning, walls broken in mid-course, great chunks of medieval masonry tumbled down the steep hill sides and lying where they fell. The destruction was carried out in 1646 and has not been significantly altered since.

The National Trust, which has owned the castle since 1982, manages the site with an approach that preserves the ruins in their post-slighting state rather than attempting reconstruction. The visitor experience involves ascending the hill through the outer gatehouse, crossing the outer ward, and climbing to the inner ward and the shattered keep — at each level, the views across the Purbeck heath and toward the coast expand, and the structural drama of the leaning towers becomes more apparent at close quarters.

The featured GYG tour (t1304777) is a six-hour Jurassic Coast minibus excursion from Portland covering multiple coastal stops including Corfe Castle, Lulworth Cove, Durdle Door, and Weymouth, in a small group (max 10). **The tour price does not include castle admission:** the Corfe Castle stop involves a guided narrated visit and photography opportunity, with National Trust entry (approximately £15.50 per adult) payable separately on-site. This is a stop on a broader coastal excursion, not a dedicated castle tour.

For visitors arriving independently, the castle is accessible year-round. The Swanage Steam Railway stops at Corfe Castle village and connects the site with Swanage and Wareham on its scenic route through the Purbeck Hills — one of the most pleasant ways to approach the castle.

[Pendennis Castle](/castles/england/pendennis-castle) — Henry VIII's Tudor artillery fort in Cornwall — was, coincidentally, another castle that held out for the King during the Civil War, finally surrendering in 1646 as Corfe did. [Bodiam Castle](/castles/england/bodiam-castle) and [Arundel Castle](/castles/england/arundel-castle) extend the South England castle circuit for visitors with more time.