Raised on a conical hill commanding a gap in the Purbeck hills, in Dorset, Corfe Castle is one of the most spectacular ruins in England. A former royal fortress, it knew in Elizabethan times a significant turning point: the passage from the Crown into the hands of a favourite of the queen.
From Crown to favourite
A royal fortress since Norman times, with its keep raised around 1096, its inner enclosure, its Gloriette and its west bailey with three towers, Corfe was long a symbol of monarchic power in the south-west. But in 1572, Elizabeth I sold the castle to her Lord Chancellor, Sir Christopher Hatton, one of her favourites — the same to whom she had granted the estate of Ely (Hatton Garden). This sale illustrates a major evolution of the reign: the Crown was disposing of its old fortresses in favour of great servants, who held them as private holdings and marks of favour.
The oldest plan of the castle
Under Hatton, a precious document was made: his steward Ralph Treswell drew up a survey of the castle — the oldest known plan of Corfe, an invaluable testimony of its state in the late sixteenth century, before the destructions of the Civil War. For Corfe then knew a tragic end: bought in 1635 by Sir John Bankes, Attorney General of Charles I, it was heroically defended by Lady Bankes during two Parliamentary sieges, before being taken by treachery and 'slighted' (demolished with explosives) in 1646. It is from this destruction that today's jagged ruins date. To see: the Norman keep (c. 1096), the inner enclosure, the Gloriette and the west bailey with three towers.
Did you know?
We know the appearance of Corfe before its destruction thanks to a plan drawn up under Christopher Hatton by his steward Ralph Treswell: the oldest known survey of the castle. Without this Elizabethan document, the original silhouette of one of the finest fortresses in England, reduced to fragments by the Civil War, would be for ever unknown to us.
Notes
Corfe Castle lies at the village of Corfe Castle, Isle of Purbeck, Dorset; a ruin run by the National Trust, open to the public. Seasonal hours to check.
Quiz
- To whom did Elizabeth I sell Corfe in 1572?
- To Sir Christopher Hatton, her Lord Chancellor
- To Walter Raleigh
- To the pope
- What did his steward Ralph Treswell make?
- The oldest known plan of the castle
- A peace treaty
- A herbal
- What does this sale of 1572 illustrate?
- The Crown disposing of its fortresses to favourites
- A Spanish invasion
- The founding of an abbey