Corfe Castle (village)
| Corfe Castle | |
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 Corfe Castle |
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 Corfe Castle
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| Corfe Castle shown within Dorset | |
| Population | 1,355 (parish) |
| OS grid reference | SY957823 |
| Civil parish |
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| District | |
| Shire county | |
| Region | |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | SWANAGE |
| Postcode district | BH19 |
| Dialling code | 01929 |
| Police | Dorset |
| Fire | Dorset and Wiltshire |
| Ambulance | South Western |
| EU Parliament | South West England |
| UK Parliament | |
Corfe Castle is a village and civil parish in the English county of Dorset. 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. The village lies in the gap below the castle, and is some eight kilometres (five miles) south-east of Wareham, and the same distance west of Swanage. Both the current main A351 road Lytchett Minster to Swanage and the Swanage Railway thread their way through the gap and the village.
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.
Burial mounds around the common of Corfe Castle suggest that the area was occupied from 6000BC. The common also points to a later Celtic field system worked by the Durotriges tribe. Evidence suggests that the tribe co-existed with the Romans in a trading relationship following the Roman invasion c. 50AD.
The name "Corfe" is derived from the Saxon word, ceorfan, meaning to cut or carve, referring to the gap in the Purbeck hills where Corfe Castle is situated.
In the 18th century the extraction of clay developed as an industry in the village, with activity expanding significantly in the middle of the century with the arrival of William Pike, a merchant from Devon. In 1791 Pike signed a five-year contract with Josiah Wedgwood to supply 1200 tons of clay and search for further deposits. From the 1796 Corfe Castle Census of the 96 men involved in local industries and living in the town, 55 were clay cutters. Clay extraction continued to provide a major employment for the local population until the 20th century.
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Wikipedia