Durlston Castle

John Mowlem (1788-1868), a Swanage-born man, was a stonemason and builder. He was the founder of the quarrying and construction company Mowlem. He and his nephew and business partner George Burt (1816-1894) wanted to give something back to their home town, which was the source of their Portland and Purbeck limestone, popular for building at the time. John Mowlem built the Mowlem Institute, a reading room and public library, in 1862. George Burt purchased an undulating tract of land covering Durlston Head during the same year. This estate, the Durlston Estate, included quarries that supplied their firm with limestone. Burt developed this estate as a tourist attraction. Burt established the…

The side wall of the castle features a sundial and two stone tablets inscribed with various statistics such as clock times and tides around the world. South of the castle is the Great Globe, built by Burt in 1887. The footpaths around the Castle and Great Globe are lined with cast iron bollards that were brought from London. All around the estate there are further stone plaques carved with quotations from Shakespeare and the Bible, maps showing the English Channel and the United Kingdom, and further facts about the natural world. These surrounds were placed during the period 1887 to 1891. Also within the Durlston Country Park and within walking distance of the Globe are Durlston Bay, the…