Corfe Castle is a small village between Poole and Weymouth, Dorset in England. The village is known mostly for its castle, which is what gave Castle Corfe its name. The bloke and I made a trip to Bournemouth to see his family and to take his mother down to visit them, so this ended up being a family trip out to visit the village of Corfe Castle. I wanted to visit the castle as I have never been to it (despite living in Bournemouth) but I had driven past a few times. We also wanted to get some family photographs of the bloke's brother's baby who we visited a few weeks ago for the christening. I've previously visited a model village at Bourton-on-the-Water in the Cotswolds, and there are at least a couple more of these in the country.
The village of Corfe Castle itself is an attractive one made with stone, and a lot of these buildings are very old. There are quite a lot of interesting shops, cafes, pubs and a nice church here.
I was the only one that had not visited the actual castle at Corfe Castle, so we decided to go to Corfe Castle Model Village. The hours for the model village are not as long as the castle ones and it closes quite early at 4:00, so we went here first.
This village of Corfe Castle is known for its Purbeck stone and marble, and there are an abundance of fossils here. The Model Village has its own fossil corner. There's also a grave for a dog in the gardens here (Woffee Dog-Wagger, who died in 1934), and the dog lived to be 13 and 1/2, though I could not see anymore information about the beloved pet which has its own tombstone in the garden.
The upper part of the gardens has a croquet area and gardens with flowers as well as a little fairy garden with gnomes and faries scattered around.
The model village itself is located toward the end of the gardens. It was opened to the public in 1966, and it depicts the village and castle as it was in 1646 at the time of the English Civil War. Some of the buildings are modelled in the 1960s businesses. The model village was the idea of Eddie Holland, who had the idea in the 1950s and who wanted it to be near the castle. The village took two years to build. There is also a model of the Model Village (to infinity) inside the Model Village. The church has music playing from it as well, which I did not notice until I was about to leave.
Behind the castle are large-scale games to play, like "Connect 4" and checkers. There were many others as well, and this also led to a small 'wilderness' walk, which just looped back to the gardens and could be walked in a minute or two. Unfortunately, the castle was damaged earlier this year when the country had snow and ice. The castle collapsed due to the weight of the snow and ice, but the weather has not been good enough to start the repair work.
One of the houses was open, and it looks like a metal-worker's house.
After the visit to the Model Village, we went to the National Trust (who manage the castle) tea rooms next to the castle entrance and had cream tea - scones and tea. The weather was not the warmest, so this was a welcome treat.
Overall, it was a nice trip to Castle Corfe, and I will be posting more photographs of my visit to the castle itself, so do keep checking back. Have you ever visited Castle Corfe or the model village?
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