Corfe Castle: the Bankes Arms Hotel

Built in Purbeck stone and with a Purbeck stone roof, this handsome building in the village square is (according to Pevsner's "The Buildings of England") of the 1920s. This makes good sense.

In the 1880s the Swanage Railway company built a railway line from Wareham to Swanage. Demolition work was required to enable a connecting road to be built from the new Corfe Castle station to the main Wareham to Swanage road. That road, Station Road, can be seen to the immediate right of the hotel.

It is likely that the present hotel's predecessor had to be demolished to make way for the new road, probably by a widening of the street. The Bankes family were the major local landowner, and may simply have decided to take their time before replacing the building.

The Bankes Arms was used for many years as the family's counting house as well as a hostelry. Every week their tenants would line up outside the building to pay the rent.


On the far right of the photo can be seen a small part of Cleall's Stores, which a few years ago was the subject of a televised Mary Portas "Mary Queen of Shops" make-over.

For the uninitiated:
The name of this TV series was a pathetic pun on the name Mary Queen of Scots. However, so far as is known, Mary Portas is not at any risk of having her head chopped off.