Saturday October 13th

Today we went for a walk then visited Corfe Castle.  The walk was known as “Old Harry Rocks” walk which took us along the chalk cliffs around Studland Bay.  As soon as we reached one end known as “Handfast Point”, not only did we see the Old Harry Rocks themselves, but we were also able to see the Isle of Wight!  It was a very clear, sunny but chilly day.

The Harry Rocks are known as Harry, Harry's wife, and No-Man's Land stack, the latter which is the closest to the current cliff edge and was only separated from the mainland in 1921.  The cliffs here are about 70 metres in height.  Further along the walk we saw two more stacks, known as “Pinnacle” and “Haystack” before continuing to look out further across the water, where, before we turned back inland, we could see Bournemouth.  After the walk, we got back into the car and went to Corfe.  Before we visited the Castle, we had some lunch.  We were very British and sat outside (in October...!) but I had some soup which was nice and warming!

Corfe Castle was initially built in the 11^th century by William the Conqueror, whilst the keep was built in the 12^th century by Henry I.  The castle was besieged twice during the English civil war by Oliver Cromwell, the 2^nd time it was captured and blown up by the parliamentarians.  This is the only castle so far I have visited where you can really see the damage – the front gate is cut in half, with one side much lower than the other.  The walls are chunky and crooked, very out of place.  Surrounding the keep there are many chunks of masonry sitting at all sort of angles!  It's quite fun to explore, but you can really see the damage which was left behind.

After exploring the Castle, we visited the shop before heading back to the car and back to the cottage, where we had tea and a slice of cake!