ViewsWatchersPlease Donate |
Corfe Castle is a civil parish and a village in Dorset, England. It is the site of a ruined castle of the same name. The village and castle stand over a gap in the Purbeck Hills on the route between Wareham and Swanage with the village lying below the castle. It is around four miles (6.4 km) southeast of Wareham, and four miles (6.4 km) north-northwest of Swanage. Both the main A351 road from Lytchett Minster to Swanage and the Swanage Railway thread their way through the gap and the village. The parish had a population of 1,355 in the UK census of 2011. The civil parish of Corfe Castle stretches across the width of the Isle of Purbeck, with coasts facing both the English Channel and Poole Harbour. It, therefore, includes sections of both the low-lying sandy heathland that lies to the north of the castle and the rugged Jurassic Coast upland to the south. The parish of Corfe Castle formed part of the Purbeck District municipality between 1974 and 2019. It was the sole parish in the Corfe Castle Hundred
[edit] The CastleIn 1572, the fortification known as Corfe Castle left the Crown's control when Elizabeth I sold it to Sir Christopher Hatton. Sir John Bankes bought the castle in 1635, and was the owner during the English Civil War. His wife, Lady Mary Bankes, a [[Wikipedia:Cavelier|Royalist], led the defence of the castle when it was twice besieged by Parliamentarian forces. The first siege, in 1643, was unsuccessful, but by 1645 Corfe was one of the last remaining royalist strongholds in southern England and fell to a siege ending in an assault. In March that year Corfe Castle was slighted on Parliament's orders. It is now owned by the National Trust and the castle is open to the public. It is protected as a Grade I listed building and a Scheduled Ancient Monument. [edit] Kingston in Purbeck
Kingston in Purbeck lies within the civil parish of Corfe Castle and is situated about two miles south of the town and five miles west of Swanage. The village of Kingston in Purbeck is situated on a hill near Swyre Head, the highest point of the Purbeck Hills. The village is surrounded by woods and stands at a height of over 400 ft (120 metres) above sea level and can be seen from a great distance. [edit] Research Tips[edit] Dorset Research TipsOne of the many maps available on the website A Vision of Britain through Time is one from the Ordnance Survey Series of 1900 illustrating the parish boundaries of Dorset at the turn of the 20th century. This map blows up to show all parishes and many of the small villages and hamlets. The internal boundaries on this map are the rural districts which are indicated in WeRelate's "See Also" box for the place concerned (unless it is an urban parish). The following websites have pages explaining their provisions in WeRelate's Repository Section. Some provide free online databases. Some are linked to Ancestry.
[edit] CensusesUK censuses are taken every ten years in the years ending in "1". There was no census in 1941. Details are not made available for 100 years after a census. A number of online databases (both paid and free) provide transcriptions of censuses up to 1911. Most of these provide information for an individual or a family. Many also provide images of the originals and thus allow browsing of a page or perhaps a whole enumeration district. The 1921 census was published in January 2022. It is available at FindMyPast with a charge additional to the usual subscrition to view the manuscript entries (there is no extra charge to view the index). The Dorset Online Parish Clerks provides a good number of 19th century census transcriptions as well as lists of baptisms, marriages and burials as recorded in the parish. The formal Home Office Numbers (those starting with HO used in 1841 and 1851), the Registrar General Numbers (starting with RG in later decades, and the Enumeration District Numbers are included. There is an illustrated article to introduce each parish. The 1841 census differed from the later ones in two different ways.
From 1851 onwards people were asked for the county and civil parish in which they were born whether in or out of the county, and ages were expressed exactly (in months for infants).
|