“A ruin is a dialogue between an incomplete reality and the imagination of the spectator.”
Christopher Woodward, In Ruins
Photograph of Corfe Castle taken during a school trip in 1983.
I first visited Corfe Castle in the summer of 1978 whilst on holiday with my family. I was 7 at the time. I can remember a postcard commemorating the murder of Edward the Martyr (reigned 975-978) a 1000 years before. It’s the first historic place which really captured my imagination, and ever since my mind’s been in thrall to the past. The idea of a 1000 years ago seemed – as it does now – impossible, and in the museum below, in the village of Corfe, I remember staring at a cannon ball dating from the English Civil War, trying in my mind’s eye to picture it, as it was at the time of the siege, moving through the air.
Photograph of me and my brother at Corfe Castle c.1980.