Corfe Castle in the Rain

Thursday 22 February 1996. Thursday was as rainy as Wednesday had been sunny. But never mind, we make the most of it and visit Corfe Castle, somewhere we haven't been before.

Even in the weather the castle is an imposing sight. The earthwork belongs to a castle from centuries before the Norman stone castle. This was the scene, in 978, of a royal murder as Edward, the boy King was stabbed in the back by an assassin in the pay of his step-mother who wanted her own son, Æthelred II (The Unready), to be king. "Unready" in this case has a different meaning to the modern use of the word. Made up of shortened forms of two Anglo Saxon words Æthel - noble - and red (ræd) - advised - the epithet originally meant "ill-advised". However he wasn't called that until around 1180 and as he died in 1016 it may be true but it may not be how his contemporaries thought of him.

Apart from the castle we wanted to find the shop that was the inspiration for one of Miss Franny's Liliput Lane cottages, Purbeck Stores, seen above and below.

She started with a couple of cottages and then it grew into a hamlet, then a village, then a town and at time of writing (2023) we now have a collection resembling Birmingham...

The Bankes Arms in the village commemorates Sir John Bankes, a lawyer and politician in the House of Commons from 1624 as MP for Woolton Bassett and later for Morpeth until 1629 when King Charles I decided to rule without a parliament. He did however become Attorney General and Chief Justice to the King during the Civil War. He bought Corfe Castle in 1635 and was serving in combat in London and Oxford when Corfe became besieged by a Parliamentary force for three years 1643-1645. His wife put up a strong defence and was only defeated by the betrayal of one of her officers opening a sally door to let in the enemy. She became known as Brave Dame Mary and was allowed to retain the keys to her castle which was, however, slighted (knocked down so much as to render it undefendable) following the end of the siege.

The castle dominates the village main street from its impressive mound overlooking the village. There are post holes on the mound, the only remnants of the Saxon hall where King Edward the Martyr may have been murdered in 978 CE. William I the Conqueror ordered the stone castle to be built soon after the Conquest in 1066. It would only be partially built in stone. There would still be a lot of earth and wood employed. Subsequently future Kings added to it, Henry I began building the stone keep. During the Civil War between King Stephen and the Empress Maud, the king laid siege to it in 1139. Kings John and Henry III spent fortunes on building work and the latter ordered the keep of both this and the Tower of London to be whitewashed - which is why the London stronghold is known as The White Tower. It remained in royal hands until Elizabeth I sold it in 1572.

There are at least two other curiosities in the village. In a small square we found the old village water pump hiding within a blue wooden jacket. Unusually after all this time it retains its handle, though we didn't try pumping it - there was enough water falling from the sky...

Corfe Castle also has the smallest town hall in the country, just a short distance from the village pump.

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Bournemouth to Poole

Wednesday 21 Feb 1996. We have reached Bournemouth after a day circumnavigating the Isle of Wight yesterday in snow and a howling wind.

Just as a small contrast, this is what Bournemouth looks like once we wake, have breakfast and leave the hotel.

Though it appears sunny and gorgeous, it hides a fierce temperature. I'm not talking about heat!

Bournemouth is a hilly town with an attractive seafront and pier. The shopping centre up the hill nearby awaited us. And, oh yum! - a Wimpy burger bar! Actually the temperature was so horrendously cold that, even after a full breakfast, we found ourselves having a Wimpy burger at 10:00am and only an hour later had hot apple pie with cream to warm up again!

It was so cold in Bournemouth that by lunchtime we had decided we couldn't just spend the day walking about and we returned to the car and drove along the coast to Poole.

After finding somewhere to park we wandered around the pottery. I got into conversation with a glassblower who was so grateful at being spoken to by someone in the large but hitherto silent crowd that he kept bringing his work over to show me at every stage, pointing out bits and pieces and explaining exactly what he was doing. He was making small coloured scent bottles and they were beautiful.

I'm not sure whether it is because of the abundance of sailors wanting to get drunk whilst on dry land, or whether it is just that Devon's seaside harbour towns catered for families gathering to wave off their drunken menfolk being stretchered back onto ships deleriously happy, but these towns always seem to have built their pubs with special care for architectural attractiveness and a unique presentation that pubs from the mid 20th century onwards had almost lost entirely.

At the time these pubs were built they may well have been brewing their own ale I suppose and thus not subject to the standardisation that large breweries were to bring to the publican trade in later years. Anyway, the gable end of the Poole Arms was entirely tiled in green and I couldn't help wondering how many poor souls had staggered out after a night's drinking and thought they were in the Gents...

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The Isle of Wight

Tuesday, 20 February 1996. You will remember (if you read my account of yesterday's wanderings - or you were alive at the time and have an extremely good memory) that the weather forecast for the week had said wintry weather was moving towards us from the east.

Well it arrived overnight! This was our early morning view when we opened the curtains to gaze bleary-eyed at the new day from our Southsea hotel.

As I drew the curtains back a couple of ships were just coming into Portsmouth and I grabbed the camera to take the shots here. We decided that seeing as it had snowed and the worst weather was supposed to be to the east, we would not travel towards Dover as we had planned but would instead take the ferry over to the Isle of Wight. It was our last night at the Glendower Hotel so we gathered bags, had breakfast and set off for the ferry terminal.

The pic shows us in lane 10 of the ferry queue. Once in, there there's not a lot of chance of changing your mind and you don't find out the charges until you are in the queue and go to book. No such thing as Internet on the go back in those days!

Staying in your car is not allowed and most people went into the lounge deck but we were made of sterner - oh well... stupider - stuff! We stood on the top deck and watched as Portsmouth slipped out of sight behind us. The open deck was the equivalent of being on the roof of a three storey building. The wind could be described as icy! We stayed on the deck, watching the officers in the bridge and watching the few craft that passed us on the 35 minute journey. We saw a few other ferries and one hovercraft - which turned out to be the only one of the day crossing the Solent.

Having got to the Isle of Wight we decided to drive around the coast road in an anti-clockwise direction. We had to miss out Cowes due to roadworks which took us down almost to the centre of the island and we eventually made it back to the coast road, calling at Yarmouth just in time for lunch which we had in the Gossips Cafe at the head of the small pier.

The wind here was absolutely ferocious. Sitting in the cafe, we were over the beach and although the tide wasn't properly in, the wind whipped up the waves enough for them to cover the beach and crash up the sea wall behind us. A collection of yachts and boats were piled on the beach, in danger one would think of being dragged unmanned into the sea. The whistling sound of the wind through their rigging made conversation next to impossible.

Despite the wind we clung onto each other in an attempt to stay upright and had a short - a very short - wander. The carved plaque was on the window of the Town Hall.

Due to the extreme weather we were back in the car after 15 minutes look round and heading west towards The Needles. Snow was in the air. By the time we got to the Needles it was in the air, on the ground, floating on the sea and blowing in the wind. Especially blowing in the wind...

I wasn't going all that way in freezing temperatures to come away without some sort of record of the attempt, so I braved three inches of snow at The Needles in order to get the photos. Snow slipped down the inside of my shoe to confirm how stupid I was...

We drove all the way round the island stopping every time we found something interesting - that would be twice then... Not that the Isle of Wight doesn't have lots of lovely places to visit and fabulous views, it does. But we were sticking to the coastal road and therefore missing places like Carisbrook Castle and any other inland attractions such as gardens and amusement parks which were quite understandably closed in February anyway. Views out to sea were limited to a few yards of swirling snowflakes. You get the idea. The first place we stopped was at a pearl shop where I bought Miss Franny a few grains of grit that some oyster had vomitted over - or whatever it is they do. The second place was here where the sun came out briefly, the sheer novelty of which made us stop and get out of the car long enough for the blood to freeze in our veins, forcing us back into the car again. I have no idea where this is.

And so by mid afternoon we were almost back at our starting point and admiring the hovercraft parked up at Ryde. We could have looked for accomodation in Ryde, but it was just as cold there as it had been at Yarmouth and not really fit for wandering about on foot.

We caught the four o'clock ferry back to the mainland and drove westwards until we reached Bournemouth, where we found somewhere to stay for the night.

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From Bognor to Brighton

Monday 19 February 1996. The weather forecast for the week says snow will move in from the east. We decide that it would probably be best to go east today, before the weather comes too close!

A glance out of the hotel bedroom window before we venture down to breakfast shows us this dredger battling against the current as it makes it's way into the shelter of the harbour.

This is the delightfully deserted beach of Bognor Regis, whose inhabitants obviously were too wise to set foot out of doors. The sun was undoubtedly shining but the temperature was hovering around the freezing point. We didn't stay too long on the beach, I have to confess. I taped the surf onto Capt Slog (my portable cassette recorder) for a short while, but then a freezing cold wave submerged my trainers and the shock made me lose interest in sound effects...

Fran wasn't all that sympathetic as I explained what happened! We wandered back up towards the Promenade and found a cafe that was open. I thought the sign for ice-cream was a bit optimistic but we had a coffee in glass cups that instantly brought memories of the 1960s back to me. Of cafes with jukeboxes and milky coffee in glass cups and saucers and the sound of the Espresso machine behind the counter... So after the coffee we reminded ourselves just how cold it was and decided to bid farewell to Bognor Regis, reflecting that there was probably more life in the empty lobster pots!

After a warm in the car we found ourselves in Brighton, where I marvelled at the splendour of the Royal Pavilion, built at the whim of the Prince Regent, later George IV. It gave him an excuse to get out from the under the gaze of disapproval and spend his time cavorting with his mistress, Mrs Fitzherbert, or eating and drinking himself into a right royal stupor.

We toyed with the idea of walking round the Pavilion but a Closed sign changed our minds for us and we went off in seach of other equally splendid ways of keeping warm and amused. George spent a fortune - several fortunes - on it both inside and out with rooms wallpapered in specially produced Chinese-inspired designs. Only a couple of streets away from the seafront, Queen Victoria was later to hate it and the constant passing curiosity of locals and tourists.

We had a look round the town, which was pretty much deserted and very very cold. We came back to the Seafood Restaurant later for some tea.

The Palace Pier. Apart from a short length nearest the Promenade entrance it was closed, as was it's companion pier a bit further west and most of the seafront attractions. Shame really because I wanted to see the museum of antique amusement arcade machines. We found somewhere to have a coffee. Plenty of warm drinks and even the odd snack or bowl of soup were necessary to keep warm. Despite the sun which had been out for most of the day, the temperature was still stubbornly down towards the freezing point!

We went round the Sea Life Centre which I thought was supposed to be the biggest in England. lt may well be, but most of it was blank corridors with not even a poster to brighten up the walls let alone a fish tank. Most of it looked like the old dingy cinema that the building was originally designed for. Walking through the glass tunnel made me realise how spoilt we had been going to Sea World in Florida as here there were many more people in the tunnel than fish outside it. The biggest shark looked as though it would choke on a toe...

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HMS Warrior

Sunday, 18 February 1996, continued. Yes, four articles in and it's still the same day!

If you have read the others you will know that we are in Portsmouth's Historic Dockyard and have seen HMS Victory, the remains of HMS Mary Rose and have taken a boat trip around the dockyard to see several serving warships including the aircraft carrier HMS Invincible. We now come to HMS Warrior. Unlike HMS Victory the Warrior was open to exploring. Visitors were given a map of the decks and were free to wander around the ship at will.

Built 1859-1860, launched in 1860 and commissioned in 1861, she was the Royal Navy's first ironclad warship, a frigate with 40 guns and steam propulsion. Three masts allowed for additional sail power in ship rigging format for long distance cruising.

She carried guns ranging from 40 pound to 110 pound with mid range guns firing 68 pound. All of her guns could fire both solid round shot or explosive shells and the 68 pounders were also capable of firing shells filled with molten iron from a furnace.

On the deck I am accosted by a small chap with a broad American accent who thrusts a small Olympus camera at me and asks me to take his picture "...with plenty of rigging - I'm interested in rigging" So ok, I stood up and he legs it at top speed towards the other end of the ship with me having to trot reluctantly and somewhat bewildered behind him. "No stay over there, I don't mind if I'm just a dot - I want the rigging in..." Well if he was going to be just a dot, why not take the pic himself and claim any old short person was him???

I take a couple of pix and kneel down to take one so he could have the rigging with himself as a small dot right at the bottom of the pic. He seems to appreciate that. "Where are you from?" I ask on the long trek back to where Fran is standing, wondering why I have deserted her. "The U S of A!" comes the answer. My dry voice gets switched on... "Well, yes, I'd gathered that..." Anyway he is from Delaware which he isn't expecting me to have heard of. I feel it may not be the time to mention the Perry Como song...

I take this picture by available light which requires an exposure of six seconds. To keep the camera still I stand it on a cannon and use the self-timer. As it finishes, the third lunatic of the week taps my shoulder and says "How does that work?" A bit taken aback I say "It was on a timer". "No - the cannon..." "The cannon?!?" I ask, even more taken aback. "You know - the sight!" What? "You just look down it and generally it hits whatever you are looking at!" I explain. "Oh!" he says, disappointment in every shade of voice and demeanor.

"Sea battles were generally fought at very close quarters," I try to explain. "The idea was to batter the opposing ship whilst your own sailors jumped from your ship onto the other!" But, disillusioned, he has already moved on... Over each gun are the stowed hammocks of its crew - this was workplace, sleeping quarters and dining room.

Also overhead are racks of cutlasses - you know - for use in boarding or repelling enemy boarders... But my latest friend is busy searching for similarly-sized forks, no doubt convinced they were cutlery for mealtimes...

It's a crowded ceiling: also overhead are the gunners' equipment. From left to right, a wormer for getting bits of wadding out (paper, card, bits of anything designed to hold roundshot against the bag of gunpowder that shot it out), sponge to be dipped in water to cool out the guns and make sure no remaining burning remnants of wadding or powder bag remained to set off the next charge as soon as it was put into the barrel, and a ramrod to poke the charge bag down to where the fuse could set it alight and then to ram the shot against it and yet again to ram wadding to prevent a roundshot from rolling away from the powder charge.

Even the Captain's cabin was furnished with cannon. Bulkheads or windows were removeable so that it had a nice hole to shoot through when needed. It would still probably scorch a bit of paintwork... The cannon is roped to the wall at either side so as not to roll too far away from the wall with the recoil after firing. Crushed gun crews are seldom as effective as ones with the required number of legs and arms.

The gun does have to roll back far enough to be sponged out and reloaded though. It is heavy enough that the pulley system is needed for the sailors to be able to haul it forwards again once loaded. The brass rod at the back along with the more decorative one halfway down make up the sight that our friend above was so bewildered by. The rear one is calibrated and can be raised or lowered to account for distance if needs be.

Whilst the French Navy tended to try to shoot at masts and sails, the Royal Navy generally thought that blasting holes at waterline was more effective at sinking the enemy... Which reminds me of a funny story told to me by someone else who had done the HMS Victory guided tour. A French visitor had looked at the pyramids of cannonballs on deck and asked if they were the ones used at the Battle of Trafalgar. The Naval Officer conducting the tour answered, "No, Sir, your own navy still has those..."

The Captain's table where the senior officers would dine. The floor covering includes a rug over canvas sailcloth which has a thoughtful design painted on it to look like linoleum - ooh, luxury!

Our visit to the Historic Dockyard has made for an interesting day. On a warmer day we may have been inclined to stay a bit longer but walking around the open areas of docks is chilly in February so we head into town in search of a cafe. Later, back at the hotel, we find with some relief that the deaf couple have left along with the rest of their coach party and it is a much quieter night!

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Ships and Boats Index

Portsmouth Dockyard Boat Ride

Sunday 18 February 1996. We are at Portsmouth's Historic Dockyard. After the guided tour around HMS Victory we have a couple of things to see before embarking on a boat for a trip around the harbour on the water.

I wonder how many people just walked past this small boat with barely a glance. Reading the notice on the railings of the dockyard basin in which it floats however I find it is a full-sized replica of the launch of HMS Bounty. There is more to say about this event than I have space or knowledge to set down here. Indeed, both sides argued the toss at the time of the subsequent court martials in 1792 and the descendants of both sides have continued to insist on the other as being the one at fault ever since.

Suffice it to say that after the mutiny on 28 April 1789, Captain Bligh was forced into the ship's launch with those loyal to him, 19 men in total (although a further 4 loyal men were forced to remain on the Bounty as the launch would otherwise founder and they had skills needed by the mutineers led by Fletcher Christian. William Bligh, in an incredible feat of navigation, sailed the launch 3500 miles over open ocean to safety. Wikipedia has some detail on this page.

Likewise as regards this - the remains of Henry VIII's warship The Mary Rose. Launched in 1511, she was one of the first ships armed with heavy guns, capable of firing a broadside through what was at the time a new innovation - side opening gunports. She was rebuilt in 1536, with an added layer of decking supporting a further row of guns along each side. Her weight increased from 500 tons to 700 tons with this rebuild. She sank on 19 July 1545, for obscure reasons during battle with the French fleet. She was turning and heeled over, water rushing into her open gunports. Some French reports understandably claimed that it had been their firepower that sank her.

A salvage attempt was made shortly afterwards in August of 1536, another in 1547 and another in 1549, but the ship had fallen at an angle and had sunk into the soft silt and mud of the bottom of the Solent. Whilst some guns and other artifacts were raised the ship proved impossible to recover. Over the ensuing centuries chemicals and hungry sea creatures slowly obliterated the wooden material of the ship leaving only the buried portion - about 40 percent of the ship - intact.

The wreck was rediscovered in 1836 when some fishermen snagged it in their nets.By this date rubber diving suits had been invented and divers were able to recover some items including bronze and iron guns and some longbows. Fast track to 1966 and the wreck was once again subject of renewed searching. It was rediscovered in 1970 and a committee formed to save as much of the ship as possible, as there was no legal protection from treasure hunters at the time for sunken vessels. A new law in 1973 gave added protection but it was 1982 before the surviving structure could be lifted on 11 October.

The hull was put on display in 1984, but behind glass as it required a constant spraying of water and subsequently a polyethylene glycol (PEG) solution to arrest further deterioration. This would continue until 2013.

It's time for our boat trip around the dockyard. We catch a brief glimpse of the stern of HMS Warrior (we shall see it in greater detail in the next article) before heading into the harbour and passing more modern warships. In fact we can hardly believe the number of warships. Equally impressive is the value on show - in 1996 each destroyer costs £115,000,000 - 115 million pounds - to build.

Also in the dockyard is Her Majesty's Yacht, Britannia. It's fate is already decided and it is awaiting its final royal duty. The gold stripe... really is!

These two tugs are waiting for no one. Our tour boat has to power on and try its hardest to avoid these two from steaming down on us!

Both of Britain's aircraft carriers, HMS Ark Royal and HMS Invincible are in the harbour. Invincible is shown - Ark Royal is in a dry dock and although the superstructure can be seen, it is not possible to get a decent photograph. Seeing the Invincible brought back memories of watching the Falklands Task Force sailing in 1982.

We come back round the stern of HMS Warrior as we prepare to disembark. Just as I am finding my sea legs... (they were under my sea bum...)

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