Corfe Castle

Corfe Castle was the pièce de résistance of our England road trip. I planned our day so we would get to Corfe village in late afternoon and have some time to hike up the west hill opposite the castle. I was very eager to spend the magic hour of the sunset alone with my camera capturing these magnificent ruins.

That day we stayed at Corfe village in Oliver’s B&B. The first thing I did when the owner showed us our room was to make a beeline to the window in hopes of seeing that it faced the castle. That was probably the exact same thing most people did when they came there, because the owner immediately understood my intention and answered my unspoken question, “Yes, you can see the castle from the window.”

As we were driving towards the castle earlier in the day, we found out an interesting detail: Corfe village (and our hotel) was located next to a tank proving ground. The road warning signs were unusual, too: “Sudden gunfire!” and a picture of a tank. We laughed and did not pay much attention to it until we got back to our hotel that night: the night maneuvers were in full swing, with machine gun tut-tut-tuts and tank booms and kabooms clearly heard in the middle of the night.