The Halfway Inn, Corfe Castle

I am a 62 year old living in Tasmania, an Island state south of the Australian mainland.
My family imigrated here in 1960 when I was 11 years old.
I have never left Australia since but have a very happy life here with my Australian wife and 2 grown kids.
I have vivid recollections of holidays we spent in Dorset when I was a kid between the ages of 5-10.
My parents, 2 sisters and I lived in Hooley near Croyden in Surrey and each summer Dad drove us down to Dorset towing his home made caravan behind a Thames fordson van to The Half Way Inn in Dorset.
We camped in a field next to the pub for several years and I recall that the last year we stayed there, we had an upstairs room in the Pub.
I remember that the Pub had no running water, just a pump at the door of the building.
The WC was a bucket affair in a small building opposite the main building.
Although only young I can remember how low the doors were and how one stepped down to go into the family bar where we drank a glass of lemonade with a straw.
When we stayed upstairs I rember how tight and winding the stair case was.
The field where we camped was full in the weeks we were there and people had all manner of accommodation from home made vans like ours to ex WW2 canvas tents.
People arrived in the strangest of contraptions too, I remember whole families turning up on a cycle and side car, towing tiny trailers.
We cooked on a parrifin stove, washed in a shallow canvas basin on a timber frame and the van [built on an old taxi chassis] had 2 double beds in it one on top of the other, we kids slept side by side on the top bed, Mum and Dad slept below on the lower bed.
We had wonderful day trips from the Half Way Inn to Wareham, Corfe Castle, Swanage, Poole and more.
I came across this site by chance and am amazed that the Pub is still there 51 years later than my last stay.
Pete Baker

19 Jul 2011 06:48