The celebrated Agglestone is about a mile away on Studland Common. It is a huge fragment of the iron-cemented sandstone of the locality, raised on a mound above the heath. It has been regarded as a Druidical memorial, but though that idea may now be considered exploded, associations still attach to it, since we are told "the name Agglestone (Saxon, _halig-stan_=holy stone) certainly seems to show that it was erected for some superstitious purpose." The country people call it the _Devil's Nightcap_, and there is a tradition that his Satanic Majesty threw it from the Isle of Wight, with an intent to demolish Corfe Castle, but that it dropped short here! How it comes to be poised here has puzzled the archæologist, but it has been explained as being simply a block that has been insulated by process of nature, the result of its protecting from the rigours of wind and rain the little eminence which it caps.
Corfe is six miles by road from Swanage by way of Langton Matravers, a village of sombre stone houses, which is occupied by workers in the neighbouring stone quarries. The place-name "Matravers" is identified with the family of Maltravers, one of whom was the unworthy instrument employed by Mortimer and Queen Isabella in the murder of Edward II. This member of the family having turned out to be such a particularly "bad Travers," his descendants sought to hide their evil reputation by dropping the "l" out of their name.
From a photograph taken in 1860, showing the old Greyhound Inn, with projecting porch and a capacious room poised above it. The picturesqueness and solid comfort of this inn, built three hundred years ago, remains unimpaired to this day]
The "Old Malt House," which is now a school, is a fine specimen of the old-time stone building, and one can still trace bricked-in windows, where the sacks were hoisted in to the malt floors. Passing Gallow's Gore Cottages we come to Kingston, which is two miles from Corfe Castle, and is pleasantly situated on an eminence which commands a good view of the surrounding country. Encombe, the seat of the Eldons, is about two miles to the south-west and is the Enckworth Court (Lychworth Court in early editions) of _The Hand of Ethelberta_. The house lies deep down in the beautiful valley of Encombe, which opens out to the sea, with fine views in almost every direction. This valley is known as the Golden Bowl, by reason of the fertility of the soil. A short distance from Kingston may be seen the remains of the old manor-house of Scowles.