I. CORFE CASTLE AND STUDLAND. 



castle, of course, was not built in a day, they built houses for 

 themselves close by, and so arose the town of Corfe, whose 

 stone-cutters and marblers in the Middle Ages sent Purbeck 

 marble, to all parts of England, and even abroad. The castle 

 was built for a two-fold purpose— first, to uphold the King's 

 rights in that part of the countr)-, which was a royal warren, well 

 stocked with deer and other game ; and, secondly, as a state 

 prison. Mr. Bartelot mentioned the many notable prisoners who 

 have been confined in close custody in the castle, from the 

 days of the unhappy Robert, Duke of Normandy, downward. 

 Speaking of the periods at which various portions of the castle 

 were built, he attributed the King's Tower, or great keep, with 

 its wide courses of roughish, thickly-jointed burr, to the 

 Conqueror, and the inner gateway, called King Edward's gate- 

 way, with its beautiful closely-jointed ashlar, to Edward I., by 

 whom also it is supposed that the mural towers and curtain walls 

 of the first ward were built. The herringbone work on the west 

 spur of the castle hill Mr. Bartelot described as the earliest 

 masonry within the walls, and undoubtedly Saxon work. Why, 

 he asked, did the Normans build a wall outside it and preser\-e it 

 so carefully ? He concluded that it was because of their religious 

 feeling, their respect for the wall of what they believed was an 

 ancient sacred building. And there was ample e\idence that, 

 according to William of Malmesbur}-, St. Aldhelm soon after the 

 year 690 built a church at Corfe. There was evidence from the 

 windows that there never was an upper storey to this herring- 

 bone building, and in size it corresponded with the usual Saxon 

 churches of that date. 



The Assistant Secretary contended that there was no 

 evidence, either intrinsic or extrinsic, to support the theory that 

 this ancient herringbone masonry was the remains of a church 

 built by St. Aldhelm. Herringbone masonry was by no means 

 confined to the Saxon period, but continued to be used well 

 down into Norman times. That was not the only instance of 

 herringbone masonry in the ruins, for there was another small 

 piece on the summit of the hill, which it had never been 



