Corfe Castle

Parked at the NT Corfe Castle car park and walked along the nature trail into the village and then to the Castle ruins. It must have been an outstanding castle when it was built for William the Conqueror in the 11th century, but is now an impressive ruin after being blown up after the civil wars around 1650. At the time it was owned by the Bankes family who then moved to their other estate at Kingston Lacy and it was bequeathed to the NT in the 1980's with Kingston Lacy and a lot of coast and land thereabouts.

There were some NT displays and stalls in the outer keep and Rosemary bought me only the second ice cream to be sold there this year. Its been a bad, bad summer apparently and the ice cream stall only just opened.

We bought some rolls and scones in the village bakery and we had lunch in the van, in the summer drizzle, before moving on. We stopped at Kingston Lacy, as it was on our route, to have a look round the gardens and the house where the Corfe Castle keys are on display in the library. We had tea and cake in the cafe and set off north to find a site on our way home. After a couple tries and some torrential downpours we finally found a nice Britstops pub in the small town of Westbury.

We had our evening meal there, in the Horse and Groom, and went to see the nearby Westbury White Horse the following morning. Its one of several carvings in the chalk hillside of Wiltshire, this being the oldest and only standing horse, measuring 180 x 170ft. It is close to an Iron Age hill fort and has actually been concreted over now to avoid the maintenance costs of keeping the horse looking white!

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