Rufus Castle

The castle, constructed in the form of a pentagon, has 7-foot-thick walls pierced by numerous loop-holes meant to allow archers to fire at attackers. This gave the castle an alternative name; "Bow and Arrow" Castle. It is built with Portland stone.

Rufus Castle features walls of roughly squared rubble and no roof. The walls to the north and west stand to their full height and retain at the top a number of shaped corbels for a machicolated parapet, but part of the south-east wall, which is thinner, has broken away. To the south-west is a gateway with four-centred, arched head; to the north is a 19th century gateway with a round-arched head approached by a bridge of the same date. In the south-east wall is a chamfered stone jamb of a doorway which has been closed up. In the north and west walls, at first-floor level, are five embrasures, splayed internally under segmental rear arches, with circular gunports. Outside the south gateway are the remains of stone footings and there are said to have been further buildings to the east, where the cliff has fallen away. The pentagonal tower of Bow and Arrow Castle overlooking Church Ope Cove has late Medieval gunholes, but rests uncomfortably on an earlier foundation to the north and stepped plinth to the west which may have been a 12th century keep.

Rufus Castle has been owned by Mark Watson since the mid-1990s, a writer and broadcaster on royalty and genealogy. He has written books on royalty such as Royal Families Worldwide.

In the Sunday Mirror issue from 10 August 1997, an interview/article based on Watson was written by Caroline Sutton. In the article, which had the headline "Hello darling... I'm king of the £1 castle.", Watson revealed plans to turn the castle into a tourist attraction, with the article writing "Home is a council house, he drives a shaky old car and his income amounts to shirt buttons. But Mark Watson has just snapped up his very own clifftop castle... for £1. Now Mark, wife Caroline and their four children can't wait to show the castle off to the royals who often pop in to their terraced house for tea - honestly. Mark, 33, believes that battered Rufus Castle - built on the Dorset coast by William The Conqueror's son - can be transformed into a national treasure. He has already set his plans into motion and predicts that restoration will cost at least £250,000. He said: "People may think it's a mad scheme, but I'm sure it will work. I want to set up a fund and restore it as a local bit of heritage and a tourist attraction." Warning bells might have sounded to anyone but Mark when the last owners felt the castle was such a liability that they were willing to let it go for a quid. At least Mark's home in Kinson, Bournemouth, provides a roof over their heads and three bedrooms. The castle has no roof and not even four walls. But Mark's colourful outlook and big plans convinced the former owners he was the right man to take it on. He's had a succession of jobs since leaving school at 16 and now concentrates on tracing family trees."