Historic Places in Dorset

Sandfoot Castle is situated just to the West of Weymouth, on the edge of the cliff overlooking Portland Harbour. The main castle was rectangular with two storeys and dungeons. It provided a heavy gun emplacement, quarters for its garrison and underground magazines. The castle was surrounded by a ditch and a series of ramparts. Coastal erosion undermined the cliff the castle stands on, and Sandfoot began to crumble. The castle has been unstable for many years, with most of it having fallen into the sea. It is a dangerous structure and public access is prohibited for safety reasons. There used to be a wooden bridge from the gardens to the castle, but that was removed in 2003. The castle was built by Henry VIII as coastal defence against attacked by Roman Catholic enemies from the continent. He built several castles along the south coast of England and Portland Castle and Sandsfoot Castle were the first to be completed in the late 1530s. The two castles were sited to protect Portland Harbour. Sandsfoot Castle was vulnerable to attack from land and changed hands more than once during the English Civil War. The castle dungeons were used as a mint during the Civil War.

Old Sherborne Castle is situated in the grounds of the 'New Sherborne Castle', half a mile east of Sherborne in the south west of England. The ruins of 'Old Sherborne Castle' comprise of part of a high curtain wall and its three storey gatehouse and parts of the Great Tower and the north range. The castle is within an estate of over 15,000 acres of woodland, formal gardens and a lake Facilities The castle is open daily from 10am between April and November, and has its own small shop selling souvenirs, light refreshments, ice cream and soft drinks, or visitors are invited to picnic within the ruins. Old Sherborne Castle' was built in the early 12th century as the fortified palace for Roger de Caen, Bishop of Salisbury who was also the Chancellor of England. He served as Chancellor to King Henry I, but after Henry's death there were great conflicts as to the ownership of the castle, it was seized for the crown before finally being repurchased by the church who kept it until the late 16th century. Queen Elizabeth persuaded the church to relinquish the estate to the Crown in 1592 after Sir Walter Raleigh fell in love it and petitioned her to acquire it for him. The castle was leased for 99 years to Sir Walter but he decided that the old castle did not meet his needs so he built a new home 'Sherborne Lodge' on the south side of the lake in the deer park. The castle was used for the last time during the civil war when it was twice held for the King, on the second occasion it managed to hold out for over two weeks against General Fairfax. Finally, in the following year the castle's defenses were partially dismantled to prevent further use and it was left abandoned. Although the castle is still within the estate owned by the Wingfield Digby family, it now in the care of English Heritage.

The castle is situated in the heart of Dorset between Bournemouth and Weymouth, 2 miles from Tyneham on the south west coast of England. Set in a beautiful parkland estate with views of the English Channel, the restored castle is square in shape with circular towers at each corner. The crenellated castle is built of light colored stone and has been given a new roof following a fire. The grounds also contain one of the reputedly finest pieces of architecture in Dorset, the chapel of St. Mary's. Facilities The castle and park are open daily (except Saturday) year round from 10.30am to 4pm between January to March and October to December, and until 6pm April to September. The castle offers visitors 'The Courtyard Shop' with souvenirs and gifts and the 'Stable Cafe' with its views out towards the sea, serving light meals and refreshments. The castle also operates as a wedding venue for civil marriages and wedding receptions. A visit inside the castle reveals displays, gallery and interpretation panels about the castle's history and unfortunate fire as well as a unique look at the inside of a castle from top to bottom in a very different way, with secret doors and hidden passages of the past on show. Visitors can also see inside Lulworth Castle House with an appointment. Originally built as a hunting lodge in 1610 for Thomas Howard, Lulworth Castle was used to entertain Royal guests and was later made into a country house with a grand estate. In 1541 Humphrey Weld purchased the property and added a chapel after which time it was also used by the French Royal Family as a place of exile after the French Revolution. In 1929 the castle was subject to a huge fire which totally destroyed the interior and roof, the damage was so significant that the family built a new residence Lulworth Castle House nearby rather than rebuild the castle. In the 1970's English Heritage began restoration work on the castle with the exterior being restored to its former glory and the remaining inside walls being cleaned and restored but without any further reconstruction. The Arts In 2008 and 2009 the castle grounds were home to the Camp Bestival music festival with appearances from Kate Nash, The Flaming Lips and Chuck Berry.

Corfe Castle rises from a natural chalk and limestone hill in the Purbeck Hills of Dorset, commanding the only gap through the ridge and occupying a position of strategic importance that has been fortified for over a thousand years. The dramatic and atmospheric ruins visible today, with their shattered walls and towers tilted at impossible angles of arrested collapse, are the result of a deliberate slighting ordered by Parliament after the Civil War siege of 1646, the explosions and subsequent dismantling leaving the fabric in permanent ruin. The result is one of the most evocative castle landscapes in England, a ruin whose broken profile communicates both the grandeur of the original building and the violence of its deliberate destruction. The castle had a long and sometimes dark history before its Civil War end. King Edward the Martyr was murdered here in 978, securing the throne for his half-brother Aethelred the Unready. King John used the castle as a prison and is said to have starved twenty-two French knights to death in the dungeons in 1203. The castle served as a key element in the royal control of the Purbeck stone quarrying industry, which produced the dark limestone used for decorative work in medieval churches and cathedrals across England and made this corner of Dorset economically significant far beyond its size. The Civil War siege is Corfe's most celebrated episode. Lady Mary Bankes defended the castle against Parliamentarian forces for nearly two years while her husband was away with the Royalist army, her resistance becoming one of the celebrated loyalist stories of the conflict. The castle fell only through treachery in 1646 and was ordered demolished shortly after, Lady Bankes keeping its keys until her death as a symbol of rightful ownership. The keys are preserved to this day at the family estate of Kingston Lacy. The village of Corfe Castle below the hill, its stone cottages arranged around the castle's commanding presence, is one of the most attractive in Dorset.

Portland Castle was built by Henry VIII in the 1540s as a coastal defence against the French and Spanish. It was used as a prison during the Civil War, a sea-plane station in World War I, and a command post during World War II. It is now owned by English Heritage and is open to the public daily.

Maiden Castle near Dorchester in Dorset is the largest Iron Age hillfort in Britain and one of the most impressive prehistoric monuments in Europe. Its vast earthwork system covers nearly 50 hectares of a natural chalk ridge, and the scale of the multiple ramparts and deep ditches that surround the inner plateau becomes fully apparent only when you walk the circuit of the defences, a journey of nearly a mile just to circumnavigate the outer bank. The site's history of human occupation stretches back far beyond the Iron Age fort. Neolithic people built a causewayed enclosure and a long barrow here as early as 3500 BC, and archaeological evidence shows continuing activity across several thousand years before the great Iron Age fortification was constructed from around 600 BC onwards. The hilltop's commanding position over the surrounding chalk countryside made it a natural focal point for the communities of the Dorset downland across many generations. The development of the hillfort itself was a lengthy process. The original Iron Age enclosure was relatively modest, but a massive expansion in the third century BC extended the defences to their full extent and added the elaborate inturned entrances at the eastern and western ends. These entrances are the most complex and impressive features of the site, their multiple overlapping banks and ditches creating a labyrinthine approach that would have channelled and slowed any attacking force while defenders rained missiles from the ramparts above. The sheer quantity of sling stones found by archaeologists at Maiden Castle indicates that the defended community was prepared to resist attack with considerable force. Evidence of the Roman assault on Maiden Castle was discovered by Mortimer Wheeler during excavations in the 1930s. A war cemetery containing bodies showing spear and sword wounds, with Roman ballista bolts still embedded in the bone, provided dramatic evidence of the conflict that accompanied the Roman conquest of Britain around AD 43 to 44. The site was subsequently abandoned as a settlement as the local population moved to the newly established Roman town of Durnovaria, modern Dorchester. The site is managed by English Heritage and is freely accessible at all reasonable times. The best views of the full extent of the earthworks are obtained either from the air or by walking around the complete perimeter circuit, which reveals the monumentality of the construction in a way that no static viewpoint can capture.