On the morrow, when I stepped out under the famous porch chamber of the Greyhound Hotel, Corfe wore her bright morning smile. The air was soft, warm and redolent with the scent of good blue wood smoke. Corfe is one of the pleasantest villages in Dorset and has a wonderfully soothing effect upon the visitor. I should recommend this old-world retreat for those who are weary of the traffic and frenzy of the city market-place. The prevailing colour of the old houses makes the place ever cool-looking and lends the village an air of extreme restfulness. From the humblest cottage to the Town House opposite the village cross the buildings are of weather-beaten stone, and are a delicate symphony in the colour grey, the proportions also being exactly satisfying to the eye. Stone slabs of immense size form the roofs themselves. Look at the roof of the Greyhound Inn! When these roof stones were put down the builder did not put them there for his own day, selfishly, but for posterity. This, as Hilaire Belloc would say, is a benediction of a roof, a roof that physically shelters and spiritually sustains, a roof majestic, a roof eternal. A walk through the town will reveal Tudor windows, quaint doorways and several eighteenth-century porches, of which that at the Greyhound is the best example. The market-place, with the Bankes Arms Hotel at one end, the Greyhound backing on to the castle and the castle and hills peering over the roof tops of the town, gives one a mingled pleasure of reminiscence and discovery. Standing back a little from the Swanage road is the small Elizabethan manor-house of Dackhams or Dacombs, now called Morton House, and one of the best manor-houses in the country. The ground plan forms the letter E, and it has a perfect little paved courtyard full of flowers.
Corfe Church was rebuilt in 1860, but it preserves some historic continuity in its tower, which dates from the end of the fourteenth century. The churchwardens' chest in the porch was made in the year 1672, and Hy Paulett, who made it, was paid the magnificent sum of eight shillings. And did Hy Paulett go often to the Greyhound and allay his thirst in the making of it? A man would require good ale to make such a "brave good" chest as this. And can they make such chests in these days? Lord knows!... Anyhow, there is something in such a piece of work which appeals to me—something which seems to satisfy the memories in my blood. The clock dates from 1539. Curfew is tolled in Corfe daily, from October to March, at 6 A.M. and 8 P.M. Hutchins, writing at the end of the eighteenth century, tells us that the people of Corfe were of an indolent disposition, and goes on to say that "the appearance of misery in the town is only too striking." Perhaps they "mumped" around and watched Hy Paulett work laboriously on the church chest and became downcast when he only received eight shillings for it. However, the morality of Corfe should have been high, for the churchwardens appear to have been very exacting in the matter of Sabbath observance. In the quaint old church records, which date from 1563, are many interesting references to the offenders in this respect:
"1629. We do Present William Smith for suffering two small Boys to have drink upon the Sabbath day during Divine service.
Item. We do Present John Rawles for being drunk on the Sabbath day during the time of Divine service.
Item. We Present the Miller of West Mill for grinding on the Sabbath day.
Item. We do Present John Pushman Anthony Vye and James Turner for playing in the Churchyard upon the Sabbath day.
1630. We do Present William Rawles for sending his man to drive upon the Sabbath day.
Item. We do Present James Turner and George Gover for being drinky on the Sabbath day during the time of Divine service."
The reader will note that the churchwardens at Corfe were blessed with a very keen sense of moral acumen and split hairs over the degrees of inebriation. They found it intolerable to write a man down as intoxicated who had "half-a-pint otherwhile," so they merely entered him in their records as "drinky"; while, on the other hand, the man who was vulgarly concerned in liquor was described as a plain "drunk."
According to an old rhyme the man who killed a fox was a great benefactor and was considered as rendering a service a hundred and sixty times more important than the man who killed a rook.
"A half-penny for a rook,
A penny for a jay;
A noble for a fox,