CORFE CASTLE AND STUDLAND, xlix. 



FIRST SUMMER MEETING. 

 CORFE CASTLE AND STUDLAND. 



The First Summer Meeting was held on Thursday, June 

 2sth. The party numbered about 80. The meeting place was 

 at Corfe Castle. 



Under the guidance of the Rev. R. Grosvenor Bartelot, Vicar 

 of Fordington S. George, the ]\Iembers made their way to the 

 Square and across the ancient stone bridge with its four arches 

 of irregular span, and so forth into the Outer Bailey of the 

 Castle. Mr. Bartelot referred first to the murder of King 

 Edward the Martyr at Corfes Geat in the year 979, as recorded 

 in the Saxon Chronicle, the earliest documentary mention of 

 Corfe ; and, in deviation from the familiar tradition, he expressed 

 the opinion that the donms Elfrida, the home of Edward's cruel 

 and treacherous stepmother, was not upon the castle hill, but 

 probably on or near the site of the old house of the Syferwast 

 and Uvedale families, hereditary warreners of Royal Purbeck. It 

 was significant that no mention of Corfe was made in Domesday 

 Book, and it went to show that there was no Saxon Castle at 

 Corfe. Had there been a castle it would surely have been 

 mentioned. King Edred, uncle of Edward the IMartyr, in 

 948 gave the site of the present castle to the Abbey of Shaftes- 

 bury, and, as part of the Manor of Kingston, it remained the 

 property of the Abbey until about 1075 ; but it was expressly 

 noted in Domesday that one hide of land out of the Manor of 

 Kingston had been given by the Abbess of Shaftesbury to 

 William the Conqueror in exchange for the Church of 

 Gillingham ; and the Testa de Neville a few years later stated 

 that the advowson of Gillingham was given to the King in 

 exchange for the land on which the Castle by Wareham [i.e., 

 obviously Corfe Castle), was built. Stone-masons and marblers 

 came to build the castle — at a penny a day wages, as the 

 inhabitants of Corfe were still never tired of telling ; and, as the 



