CORFE CASTLE

parish and castle, Purbeck district, county of Dorset, England. The medieval castle, commanding a gap in the Purbeck chalk ridge, is now an imposing ruin. During the English Civil Wars it was dismantled by Parliamentary forces in 1646. The stone-built settlement that grew in its shelter was once a corporate borough and centre of the local quarrying of Purbeck marble, widely used in the 14th century for shrines and tombs. It is now a tourist centre. Pop. (1981) 1,338.