Charborough Chapel
Chris Downer
Charborough House
John Lamper
Charborough Chapel Gargoyles
Chris Downer
Charborough Stag Gate
Clifton Beard
Photographs
With thanks to Chris Downer, John Lamper, Clifton Beard & Catherine Marks.
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| Charborough Park has been the country seat of the Erle family and its descendents from Elizabethan times, although the family name has undergone some alteration due to passage through female lines. The name of the family today is Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax. Part of the original house built by Sir Walter Erle, the then Governor of Dorset, used timbers and other materials he salvaged from Corfe Castle after he successfully beseiged it on behalf of the Parliamentarians in 1646. Later, the chapel here was the scene of the first meeting of the co-conspirators to rid England of the catholic James II, hosted by Thomas Erle, MP for Wareham since 1678. The plot was ultimately successful and became known as the Glorious Revolution (1688), resulting in the accession of William & Mary. The gardens, which are open to the public a couple of days each year, are surrounded by one of the longest walls in England. Built by John Samuel Wanley Sawbridge-Erle-Drax around 1841, it used more than 2 million bricks. He was the Drax who successfully had the new Wimborne to Dorchester turnpike diverted half-a-mile from his house. It was Charborough Park and its folly which served Thomas Hardy as the model for Welland House in "Two on a Tower". | ||
Also see www.geograph.org.uk where John Lamper & Chris Downer have many more photographs
