The main purpose of staying in Swanage was to visit places where my family lived. Specifically, the Bridles (my grandmother on my mother's side). My grandmother was born in a place called Worth Matravers.  It's a tiny village, with some lovely old houses and a church that dates back to the 13th century. We also found the house that my great great great grandfather bought, called Seaview, but which was renamed by the subsequent owners as "Bridles", in honour of the previous owners. I met the current owners, Gerald and Sheila Crofton-Biggs, and they were kind enough to show me round their house. It's obviously changed since my family lived there, but some parts remain, including the original oak beams in the carpentry work room. It was amazing to see, and really connected the history for me. We also spent some time looking round St Nicholas' church in Worth. We found the graves of James and Mary Ann Bridle (my great great great grandparents). We have a picture somewhere of the headstone, but it was great to track it down and take some fresh photos. 

We then visited Langton Matravers, which is just down the road from Worth, and slightly larger. They had a small parish museum, with some interesting exhibits about the stone workers for which Langton is famous. It turns out, many of the Bridle family were involved in the stone industry, and the exhibition includes some photos of the Bridles at work, along with some artifacts donated by the family. We still need to work out exactly what branch of the family they come from, but they are definitely related. 

We also went to Wareham. This is a much larger town. We went to the museum there and saw some photos which were taken by my ancestor James Bridle. We were also able to identify the site of his photography studio and the pub which his father ran. We had a quick look round the graveyard of one of the churches (Wareham has several), but by then the rain had set in, and the needle in a haystack game was starting to wear thin, so we abandoned the rest of our plans in Wareham. 

We drive back to Swanage via Corfe Castle. This is both a place and an actual castle. It's not far from Wareham, so I shouldn't have been surprised that it was raining there too. And as the castle is pretty much a ruin, there wasn't going to be much shelter from the elements. So sadly, we abandoned that too, and went back to Swanage. 

Overall, we had a good time in Swanage and the Isle of Purbeck. It's a lovely seaside town, and when the sun shines it's amazing. People were, for the most part, friendly, and there were some great walks to do. We has planned to walk a couple of miles along the coast to Durlston Castle, but ran out of time. One more thing to add to our sequel trip, whenever that is...