Image Description (Alt text): An illustration of how Corfe Castle may have looked with formal gardens in the Outer Bailey and on the terraces.
Audio track transcript:
"Sir Christopher’s castle he says! Ha! His nephew and heir, William, was my husband, and deeply in debt when he died, God rest his soul. William couldn’t afford these estates, but I managed them for 38 years.
Elizabeth Hatton, courtier. Building beauty out of decay. Imagine this…
You pass beneath the gatehouse arch, and are overwhelmed by terraces filled with shrubs and hedges of holly, yew, hawthorn. Knot gardens of rosemary and flowers. As you stroll, you pass topiary and obelisks, sculptures and fountains. I created it all. You should hear the cost of moving soil alone.
The dip in the ground behind you was our well house. And I added a viewing platform to the hill above. In the valley was a three-acre garden with a rectangular pond.
This, is what we can do without war. Armouries replaced with flower-filled terraces. I even sold our heavy cannon. Of course, it was frowned upon. Three military gentlemen wrote of ‘the weakening of the whole island’. Labelled me ‘Venus’, not ‘Mars’. Ha! Venus indeed.
After William died, I married Sir Edward Coke. Who knows what I was thinking. He argued he owned it, then when that didn’t work, that I should leave it to his son-in-law. I sold it to a rich lawyer instead, Sir John Bankes, in 1635.
The trackway ahead of you climbs much as it has since the 13th century. Follow it now, back into days of war…"