Welcome to Maid Spin, the personal website of iklone. I write about about otaku culture as well as history, philosophy and mythology.
My interests range from anime & programming to mediaevalism & navigation. Hopefully something on this site will interest you.
I'm a devotee of the late '90s / early '00s era of anime, as well as a steadfast lover of maids. My favourite anime is Mahoromatic. I also love the works of Tomino and old Gainax.
To contact me see my contact page.
A few weeks ago I visited the "Isle of Purbeck". She is one of the "Misnomer Isles of Dorsetshire" (a denomer I have made up), which, along with the Isle of Portland are named as such despite their obvious peninsular nature. Why Purbeck is known as an island is obscure, but its rural and hilly nature and imposing seacliffs in the south do make it somewhat isolated, despite a visible proximity to Poole-Bournemouth-Christchurch. I took my little car on this trip "the Red Comet" on what will probably be one of her final adventures as I'm planning on buying a new one this summer, and together we visited four locations on the faux-island. Through this account I would like to describe the nature of this interesting part of Wessex.
^A map of Purbeck
Entrance onto Purbeck can really only be achieved by two methods: either by taking the foot-ferry across Poole Harbour, or by the winding Swanage Road as I did. The island is defended foremost by its geography: the North by Poole Harbour, the East and South by the aforementioned chalk cliffs, and the West by impenetrable bocage terrain (and a large military ordnance range). As such the area has been used historically as a fortress, most effectively by the early Saxons, who used the island as a base from which to first expand into the Kingdom of Wessex and thencely England herself. The only gap is in the Northwest, through which the Swanage road runs, and placed at the border is the truly ancient town of Wareham, our first stop. Wareham is really, really old, being one of the first Saxon settlements on Britain and with much of the original town intact including a set of impressive city walls. The town acted as a stronghold for the Wessex Kings against Danish terror during the age of Vikings, eventually falling to the Great Heathen Army in 876. Alfred's "English Army" took back the town several months later, an event which became a pivotal moment for the momentum of Anglosaxon unity.
But Purbeck's defences only begin with Wareham. South of the town begins a range of heathland called the Hartland Moor. I took a little walk up to a high point to see a famous rock. England is full of enigmatic rocks, as I talked about before, some of which are man-made, some natural, and some unknown; this rock proclaims to be the latter. It sits in a prominent position at the peak of a hillock, visible for many miles around. "The Agglestone Rock" it is called, which apparently is Dorset-ese for "wobbling stone rock". It is thought that during that period of time which Satan had dominion over the Isle of Wight (no source required), he became angry with some Dorsetmen who were building a fortress inland. And so he came to the Westernmost point of Wight where the Needles sit (several pillars of stone off the coast, iconic to the island), he plucked a needle from the sea and hurled it towards the castle. His chuck fell short, landing on the heath in a precarious position where it would "wobble" to and fro perched as it was on the top of the hill. It became a symbol of the anti-satanic defiance of Dorset: "So long as the Agglestone rocks, Dorset will be free". For millenia the stone would wobble in the high winds that whip aross the moor as the devil tried to blow it over. That is until a fateful night in 1970 when the stone came free from its perch and came crashing down... Today it sits at a lop-sided angle and wobbles no more: Dorset has been quaking in terror ever since but the satanic hordes of Wight-men have not invaded... yet.
Even if the devil's throwing arm hadn't been as strong as he fancied, his aim was true. If you carry on the line from the Needles through Agglestone you reach the fortress which brought Satan's ire. "Corfe Castle" is one of the most romantically gothic piles in England, placed in a geography which would be far-fetched for a fantasy novel. The island as a whole is split east-west by a bizarre natural feature called the "Purbeck Monocline", a long ridge of Chalk which extends across the whole island (see the map above), going under the Solent and onto the Isle of Wight; in fact the Needles themselves are part of this feature. The ridge is steep-sided on both sides, forming a natural wall which acts as Purbeck's final line of defence. The only gap in the wall is Corfe, where the ridge dips into a gateway for 500yds or so; within this gap there is a hill, and on this hill proudly stands Corfe Castle. Sometimes you see man-made structures that fit so well within their landscape that it would be more unnatural for them /not/ to be there, and Corfe is one of them. The castle itself has been through several iterations: Saxon, Norman, Mediaeval; eventually being "slighted" by Roundheads during the civil war to prevent it being used by Cavalier holdouts.
^Corfe Castle in the Corfe gap.
Probably the most famous chapter in Corfe's history was 978 and the murder of the boy King Edward. The eldest son of King Edgar the Peacemaker, Edward was just 13 when he ascended the throne of England, never a good thing for a mediaeval kingdom's stability. His coronation was protested by the second wife of Edgar, the conniving "Queen Elfrida", who wanted her own son (Aethelred, second son of Edgar) to ascend instead. Due to the power-gap, Elfrida wrestled control of the state away from the appointed steward, leading one of the few eras of English history in which the reins of power have been firmly in female hands. In 978 she brought the 16-year old boy-King to Corfe during the summer, and shortly afterwards announced that his majesty had, unfortunately, died... Nobody was fooled, but Elfrida had so expertly taken control of the court that there were none remaining who could stand up to her, and so her young son Aethelred (to become the "unready") was duly coronated and Elfrida enjoyed another decade of stewardship. Elfrida has (of course) been elevated in the last few decades as a "boss-girl warrior" by some, but even the most ardent feminist will find it hard to defend a regicidal child-killer... Hopefully. Corfe however has no such inclinations, and proudly displays in their town-square a portrait of the boy-king and the text "Edward the Martyr King of Wessex treacherously stabbed at Corves Gate in AD 978 by his stepmother Elfrida". As insinuated Edward was later made a Martyr and his body and relics translated from Corfe to Shaftesbury to be venerated as an English Saint.
On the day of my visit Corfe was holding a Summer Fair in the castle-grounds. Stands selling local cider and honey, a group of old men singing folksongs, and several craftsmen selling sculptware made from Purbeck's most famous expert: Purbeck Stone. As you pass through the gate of Corfe Castle, you enter deep-Purbeck. Here the landscape consists of rolling limestone hills and sheer cliff edges of exposed stone, on which many dozens of small-scale quarries lie. Purbeck stone has been used across Britain to build many great houses and churches. It was seen as the premier stone for making church fonts, and so the quarries of Purbeck took on a somewhat sacral quality. I parked my car near the southern tip of Purbeck, and made the walk over the coast. The cliffs are truly dramatic, sheer walls extending out of the waves eroded by biting winds and interrupted by winding paths down to idyllic coves. On the headland I visited sat a squat little chapel, built with walls 3-foot thick and buttresses which could withstand a nuclear blast. St Aldhelm's Chapel is a true fortress of faith, holding fast against the relentless winds for the last 1000 years. From the chapel you can see out across the English Channel and the slow parade of ships across the horizon. East you can see Wight, and West the Portland Bill.
^A cove off St Aldhelm's Head
My little trip had come to a beautiful end, or so I thought... On my walk back I passed a small quarry with a plaque outside, proudly declaring they were the origin of the famous "Sign of Shitterton". I had found my final destination...
The village of Shitterton sits up near Wareham, and was honestly a pain to locate through the winding one-lane roads crawling with tractors. The village's primary claim to fame is of course its eloquent title, which has no hidden meaning and really just means the "Town of Shit". The village is conversely lovely, with old thatched cottages and well-tended gardens. Through the village runs, and I'm not joking, the River Piddle which runs with a tinge of yellow. Funnily enough, the "Sign of Shitterton" is the most distinctive feature of the place. A giant 1.5 tonne block of Purbeck Limestone solemnly engraved with the word "SHITTERTON" in an austere face. According to news sources, the residents raised funds for the sign in 2010 to prevent the frequent theft of their previous village signs. The village elder at the time stated: "We thought, 'Let's put in a tonne and a half of stone and see them try and take that away in the back of a Ford Fiesta'." So far, the Sign of Shitterton remains unscathed.
