CORFE CASTLE AND SWANAGE MEETING. This, held on Wed- 

 nesday, September 9th, 1896, was probably the largest meeting in the 

 annals of the Club, the number present at luncheon being about 

 170, in spite of ^.he somewhat unsettled weather, which, however, 

 resulted only in a slight shower at Corfe Castle. On arrival at Code 

 Castle station the party proceeded to the Castle, where they were 

 met by the Rev. Owen Mansel, who read the following paper on its 

 history : 



" The Secretary has honoured me with a request to read a paper on 

 Corfe Castle to the members of the Dorset Field Club on the occasion of 

 their meeting on this historic spot. I have undertaken the duty, though 

 with some diffidence, partly from a consciousness of inability to do justice 

 to such a grand and impressive subject, and partly because I can say but 

 little that has not been said by the late Thomas Bond, Esq., whose 

 exhaustive work contains all that can be known about Corfe Castle, and 

 to which I am largely indebted for the historic facts related in this 

 paper. The materials available for compiling a history of Corfe Castle 

 are unfortunately very few, and scattered over considerable periods, with 

 long gaps of silence intervening. This may be accounted for perhaps by 

 the fact that the Castle was used mostly as 'a state prison ; and its 

 remote situation may have prevented it from figuring largely in the 

 contemporaneous events of mediaeval history. The first event in con- 

 nection with Corfe is recorded by "William of Malmesbury in a work 

 written by him about 1105, in which he relates that St. Aldehelm, Abbot 

 of Shaftesbury, built a church there about 690. Owing to a want of 

 clearness in the language of the chronicler it is not easy to fix with 

 certainty the position of this church, but the balance of evidence seems 

 to be in favour of the opinion arrived at by Mr. Bond that it was built on 

 the western spur of this hill, and that a conspicuous piece of ancient 

 masonry in the second court of the Castle is in fact the south wall of 

 St. Aldhelm's Church. When we reach the spot I will endeavour to 

 explain the grounds on which Mr. Bond's theory is based, and which will 

 be more intelligible with the object before us. The Anglo-Saxon name 

 of this place was Corve Gate, or the Cut Gate, or way, from the natural 

 cleft in the chalk ridge which runs through the whole length of the 

 peninsula, opening here away from the north into the central valley of 

 Purbeck. It was not till after the Norman invasion, when the fortress 

 which crowns the summit of the hill impressive even in its ruins was 

 erected to establish the Conqueror's power, that the name more familiar 

 to our ears of Corfe Castle was given to the place and town. If this 

 distinction had been observed by English historians a confusion of ideas 



