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From Boscombe Pier very pleasant walks can be taken along the sands or on the cliffs. From the sands a long slope leads up to Fisherman's Walk, a beautiful pine-shaded road, although houses are now being built and so somewhat despoiling the original beauty of the spot. The cliffs may be regained once more at Southbourne, and after walking for a short distance towards Hengistbury Head the road runs inland to Wick Ferry, where the Stour can be crossed and a visit paid to the fine old Priory of Christchurch. Wick Ferry is one of the most beautiful spots in the neighbourhood, and is much resorted to by those who are fond of boating. Large and commodious ferry-boats land passengers on the opposite bank within a few minutes' walk of Christchurch. The main road from Bournemouth to Christchurch crosses the Stour a short distance inland from Wick Ferry by Tuckton Bridge with its toll-house, a reminder that, by some old rights, toll is still levied on all those who cross the Stour, whether they use the bridge or the ferry.

Bournemouth is very proud of her Public Gardens, as she has every right to be. Out of a total area of nearly 6000 acres no fewer than 694 acres have been laid out as parks and pleasure grounds. The Pleasure Gardens are divided by the Square, that central meeting-place of the town's tramway system, into two portions, known as the Lower and the Upper Gardens. These follow the course of the Bourne stream, and they have had a considerable influence in the planning of this portion of the town. The Pinetum is the name given to a pine-shaded avenue that leads from the Pier to the Arcade Gate. Here, in storm or shine, is shelter from the winter wind or shade from the summer sun, while underfoot the fallen acicular leaves of the pines are impervious to the damp. These Gardens are more than a mile and a half in extent, and are computed to possess some four miles of footpaths. The Upper Gardens are contained within the Branksome estate, and are consequently thrown open to the public only by the courtesy of the owner. They extend to the Coy Pond, and are much quieter and less thronged with people than the Lower Gardens, with their proximity to the Pier and the shore.

Another of those picturesque open spaces which do so much to beautify the town is Meyrick Park, opened in 1894, and comprising some hundred and twenty acres of undulating land on which an eighteen-hole golf course has been constructed. Another course of a highly sporting character is in Queen's Park, reached by way of the Holdenhurst Road. Beyond the Meyrick Park Golf Links lie the Talbot Woods, a wide extent of pine forest which may fittingly be included in Bournemouth's parks. These woods are the property of the Earl of Leven and Melville, who has laid down certain restrictions which must be observed by all visitors. Bicycles are allowed on the road running through the woods, but no motor cars or dogs, and smoking is rightly forbidden, as a lighted match carelessly thrown among the dry bracken with which the woods are carpeted would cause a conflagration appalling to contemplate.

The famous Winter Gardens are under the management of the Corporation, and in 1893 the spacious glass Pavilion was taken over by the same authority. It may be mentioned incidentally that Bournemouth spends a sum of six thousand pounds annually in providing band music for her visitors. The full band numbers no fewer than fifty musicians, and is divided into two portions, one for the Pier, the other for the Pavilion. The Winter Gardens are charmingly laid out with shrubs and ornamental flower beds, and on special gala days clusters of fairy lights give an added brilliancy to the scene.

Boscombe possesses her own group of gardens and open spaces. Boscombe Chine Gardens extend from the Christchurch Road to the mouth of the Chine. At the shore end is an artificial pond where the juvenile natives meet the youthful visitors for the purpose of sailing toy ships. The Knyveton Gardens lie in the valley between Southcote Road and Knyveton Road, and cover some five acres of land. King's Park, and the larger Queen's Park, together with Carnarvon Crescent Gardens, show that Boscombe attaches as much importance as Bournemouth to the advantages of providing her visitors and residents with an abundance of open spaces, tastefully laid out, and having, in some cases, tennis courts and bowling greens.

Of Bournemouth's many modern churches that of St. Peter, situated at the junction of the Gervis and the Hinton Roads, has interesting historical associations, apart from its architectural appeal.

In the south transept John Keble used to sit during his prolonged stay at Bournemouth in the closing years of his life. He is commemorated by the "Keble Windows", and the "Keble Chapel", within the church, and by a metal tablet affixed to the house "Brookside", near the pier, where he passed away in 1866. The churchyard is extremely pretty, being situated on a well-wooded hillside. The churchyard cross was put up in July, 1871. In the churchyard are buried the widow of the poet Shelley, together with her father, Godwin the novelist, and her mother, who was also a writer of some distinction. Taken altogether, this church, with its splendid windows and richly-wrought reredos and screens, is one of the most pleasing modern churches in the country, both with regard to its architecture and its delightful situation.

This hillside churchyard under the pine trees, together with "Brookside", where Keble lived, and Boscombe Manor, with its memories of the Shelleys, are the only literary shrines Bournemouth as yet possesses.

Her father, William Godwin, was a native of Wisbeach, where he was born in 1756, and at first he was ordained for the Presbyterian ministry. He was the author of a good many novels and philosophical works. In the later years of his life he was given the office of "Yeoman Usher of the Exchequer".

It was Mary Godwin with whom Shelley eloped to Italy in 1814, and whom he married in 1816, on the death of his first wife, Harriet Westbrook, who drowned herself. In 1851, Mary Shelley was laid by the side of her father and mother, brought down from St. Pancras Churchyard, and her own son, and the woman who was loved by that son, all now sleep their last sleep under the greensward of St. Peter's Church. To many of us it is the one spot in Bournemouth most worth visiting. Climbing the wooded hill we stand by the Shelley grave, and think of how much intellect, aspiration, and achievement lies there entombed, and of the pathetic cenotaph to the memory of the greatest of all the Shelleys in the fine old Priory of Christchurch, five miles away.

The Stour valley, with its picturesque river scenery, forms a charming contrast to the seaboard of Bournemouth and her suburbs of Boscombe and Southborne, while to those who are fond of river boating the whole district is full of attraction. For the pedestrian the valley is very accessible. The route from Bournemouth is by way of the Upper Gardens, and right through the Talbot Woods to Throop, where the banks of the river are covered with trees. The village is a straggling one, and the mill and weir give an additional charm to some of the prettiest river scenery in the neighbourhood. A short distance from Throop is the village of Holdenhurst, which, with Throop, forms one parish.

While in this district a visit may be paid to Hurn, or Heron Court, the seat of the Earl of Malmesbury. The house, largely rebuilt since it was owned by the Priors of Christchurch, is not shown to the public, but the park, with its beautiful plantation of rhododendrons, may be seen from the middle of May till the end of June, that is, when the flowers are in full bloom. From Holdenhurst the return journey may be made by way of Iford, and so on to the main road at Pokesdown, whence Bournemouth is soon reached.

To those who visit the ancient town of Poole for the first time by road from Bournemouth, it is difficult to tell where the one town ends and the other begins, so continuous are the houses, shops, and other buildings which line each side of the main thoroughfare; and this notwithstanding that to the left hand of the road connecting the two places lies the charming residential district of Parkstone, where the houses on a pine-clad slope look right over the great harbour of Poole. As a matter of fact Bournemouth is left long before Parkstone is reached. The County Gates not only mark the municipal boundaries of Bournemouth, but they indicate also, as their title implies, that they divide the counties of Hampshire and Dorset. Thus it is that although the beautiful houses of Branksome and Parkstone are linked to those of Bournemouth by bricks and mortar, as well as by road, rail, and tramway, they otherwise form no part of it. They are in Dorset, and county rivalry is never stronger or keener than where two beautiful residential districts face each other from opposite sides of a boundary line. Bournemouth would dearly like to take Parkstone, a natural offshoot from herself, under her municipal care, but if this were done Dorset would lose some of her most valuable rateable property, as, between them, Poole and Parkstone pay no less than one-fifth of the whole of the county rate of Dorset.

Just beyond Parkstone a lovely view is obtained of Poole Harbour from the summit of Constitution Hill.

Poole and Hamworthy, with their many industries and busy wharves, form a piquant contrast to spick-and-span Bournemouth with her tidy gardens and well-dressed crowds; but whatever the port of Poole may lack in other ways she has an abundance of history, although her claim to figure as a Roman station has been much disputed. We do know, however, that after the Norman Conquest Poole was included in the neighbouring manor of Canford, and its first charter was granted by William Longsp?e, Earl of Salisbury. It was not until the reign of the third Edward that the town became of much importance. This monarch used it as a base for fitting out his ships during the protracted war with France, and in 1347 it furnished and manned four ships for the siege of Calais. The lands that lie between Poole and Hamworthy were held in the Middle Ages by the Turbervilles, of Bere Regis, and during the Stuart period by the Carews, of Devonshire. In the reign of Queen Elizabeth the town had a considerable commerce with Spain until the war with that country put a stop to this particular traffic. As some compensation for their losses in this direction Elizabeth granted the town two new charters, and confirmed all its ancient privileges. During the Great Rebellion the town was held for the Parliament, and in 1642 the Royalist forces, under the leadership of the Marquis of Hertford, attempted its capture, but were forced to retreat.

The town is situated on a peninsula on the north side of Poole Harbour, and at one time it was the home of many smugglers. Part of an old smuggler's house has recently been discovered in the town.

The quayside is always a busy spot, and a good deal of shipbuilding and repairing is still carried on. The town is full of old houses, although many of them are hidden behind modern fronts.

In 1885 the late Lord Wimborne presented the Corporation with some forty acres of land to be converted into a Public Park. This land has been carefully laid out, and includes tennis courts and a spacious cricket ground.

As a seaport the town was of great importance and the Royalists spared no efforts to effect its capture, but like the other Dorset port of Lyme Regis, so gallantly defended by Robert Blake, afterwards the famous admiral, Poole held out to the end. Clarendon, the Royalist historian of the Great Rebellion, makes a slighting reference to the two towns. "In Dorsetshire", he says, "the enemy had only two little fisher towns, Poole and Lyme." The "little fisher towns", however, proved a thorn in the sides of the Royalists, some thousands of whom lost their lives in the fierce fighting that took place at Poole, and particularly around Lyme Regis.

The merchants of Poole became wealthy by their trade with Newfoundland, a commerce that commenced in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and lasted until well on in the reign of Queen Victoria. The trade is said to have been conducted on the truck system, and the merchants grew rich by buying both their exports and imports wholesale while disposing of them at retail prices.

Not far from the quay is an almshouse, built in 1816 by George Garland, a wealthy merchant of the town, who, on the occasion of a great feast in 1814, presented "one honest plum-pudding of one hundredweight" towards the entertainment. Farther on is a house built in 1746 by Sir Peter Thompson. It is a good specimen of Georgian architecture, and still bears the heraldic arms of the merchant who built it. Sir Peter's house is now Lady Wimborne's "Cornelia Hospital". Most of the other old houses of the town's merchants have been modernized and sadly disfigured. The oldest almshouses--and the number of ancient almshouses in a town is a sure guide to its old-time prosperity--were built originally in the reign of the fifth Henry, and for many years belonged to the Guild of St. George. In 1547, at the Reformation, they passed to the Crown, with all the other property of the Guild, and in 1550 they were purchased by the Corporation. Needless perhaps to say, they have been rebuilt more than once, although they have continuously provided for the poor for more than five hundred years.

An interesting antiquarian find was made in a ditch near Poole a few years ago of the seal of John, Duke of Bedford, under whose rule as Regent of France Joan of Arc was burned. The occurrence of the seal on this spot was due, without doubt, to this noble having been Lord of Canford and Poole.

Near the church, a modern building on the site of an older one, is a small gateway which may possibly have been a water gate, as traces of sea-weed were found clinging to it when the adjacent soil was excavated.

Older than any other buildings in Poole are the so-called "Town Cellars", referred to variously in the town's remarkable collection of records as the "Great Cellar", the "King's Hall", and the "Woolhouse". The original purpose of the building has not yet been definitely determined. It is largely of fourteenth-century date, and its doorways and windows have a decidedly ecclesiastical appearance. At the same time there is no evidence whatever that it ever formed part of a monastic foundation, or was ever built for religious purposes. The old battered building was the scene of at least one fierce fight, when a combined French and Spanish fleet attacked the town to revenge themselves on the dreaded buccaneer, Harry Paye, or Page, who had been raiding the shores of France and Spain. When the hostile fleets entered Poole Harbour early one morning five hundred years ago, the town was taken by surprise. The intrepid "Arripay", as his enemies rendered the name, was absent on one of his expeditions, but his place was worthily taken by his brother, who was killed in the fighting. The Town Cellars were full of stores and munitions of war, and when the building had been captured and set on fire, the townsmen retired, while the victorious Spaniards, who had been reinforced by the French after a first repulse, returned with a few prisoners to their ships, and sailed out of the harbour, having given the mariners of Poole the greatest drubbing they have ever received in the long history of the place.

"You are to know that we have given to our beloved uncle, William, Earl of Sarum, eighty chevrons in our forest of Blakmore, for the rebuilding of his houses at Caneford. Tested at Westminster, 28th July."

The present house occupies the site of the old mansion of the Longsp?es and Montacutes, Earls of Salisbury, of which the kitchen remains, with two enormous fireplaces, and curious chimney shafts. The greater part of the old mansion was pulled down in 1765, and the house which was then erected became, for a short time, the home of a society of Teresan nuns from Belgium. In 1826 it was again rebuilt by Blore, and in 1848 Sir John Guest employed Sir Charles Barry to make many additions, including the tower, great hall and gallery, leaving, however, the dining-room and the whole of the south front as Blore had designed them. A new wing containing billiard and smoking rooms was added so recently as 1887.

The ancient town of Wimborne, with its glorious minster, is very easily reached both from Poole and from Bournemouth. The town stands in a fertile district which was once occupied by the Roman legions, but the chief glory of the place is its magnificent church with its numerous tombs and monuments. Here are the last resting-places of such famous families as the Courtenays, the Beauforts, and the Uvedales, and here also lie the two daughters of Daniel Defoe, who joined Monmouth's Rebellion at Lyme Regis. In the south choir aisle is the tomb of Antony Etricke, before whom the Duke of Monmouth was taken after his flight from Sedgemoor. The chained library, near the vestry, consists chiefly of books left by William Stone, Principal of New Inn Hall, Oxford, who was a native of the town. In 871 King Ethelred I died of wounds received in a battle against the Danes near Wimborne. He was buried in the minster, where he is commemorated by a fifteenth-century brass, this being the only memorial of the kind that we have of an English monarch.

One cannot wander in these quiet old streets that surround the minster without recalling to memory the nuns of Wimborne, who settled here about the year 705, and over whom Cuthberga, Queen of Northumbria, and sister of Ina, King of the West Saxons, presided as first abbess. It was with the nuns of Wimborne that St. Boniface, a native of Crediton, in Devon, contracted those friendships that cast so interesting a light on the character of the great apostle of Germany.

In addition to its minster church, Wimborne has a very old building in St. Margaret's Hospital, founded originally for the relief of lepers. The chapel joins one of the tenements of the almsfolk, and here comes one of the minster clergy every Thursday to conduct divine service. Near a doorway in the north wall is an excellent outside water stoup in a perfect state of preservation.

"Here's flowers for you; Hot lavender, mint, savory, marjoram; The marigold, that goes to bed with the sun, And with him rises weeping: these are flowers of Middle summer".

The Bard of Avon laid his scene in Bohemia; but the context makes it evident that the plants named were such as were growing in an English cottager's garden in the reign of Queen Elizabeth.

Broadstone was the spot chosen by Messrs. Rivers Hill and Company for the purpose of growing lavender for their perfume distilleries. It is an ideal spot, where a large tract of heather land, on a portion of Lord Wimborne's estate, rises in a series of undulations from Poole Harbour. Although it is quite a new industry for Dorset, it has already proved of great value in finding constant employment, and an employment as healthy as it is constant, for a large number of men and women. Unfortunately, perhaps, it is an industry which demands peculiar climatic conditions to render it commercially profitable. A close proximity to the sea, and an abundance of sunshine, give an aroma to the oil extracted from the flowers that is lacking when lavender is grown inland.

The farm has its own distillery, where the oil essences are extracted and tested. The lavender is planted during the winter months, and two crops are harvested--the first in June or July, and the second in August or September. The reaping is done by men, and the flowers are packed into mats of about half a hundredweight each.

The fields are not entirely given over to the cultivation of lavender, for peppermint, sweet balm, rosemary, elder, and the sweet-scented violets are also grown here. In addition to the people occupied in the fields a large number of women and girls are employed to weave the wicker coverings for the bottles of scent, forwarded from this Dorset flower farm to all parts of the world.

CHRISTCHURCH

The ancient borough of Christchurch, five miles from Bournemouth, spreads itself over a mile of street on a promontory washed on one side by the Dorset Stour, and on the other by the Wiltshire Avon. Just below the town the two rivers unite, and make their way through mud-banks to the English Channel. The town itself is not devoid of interest, although the great attraction of the place is the old Priory church, one of the finest churches of non-cathedral rank in the country, both with regard to its size, and its value to students of architecture.

Going by the road the town is entered on the north side, at a spot called Bargates, where there was once a movable barrier or gate. Eggheite , the old name of a suburb of the town, gave the appellation to an extensive Hundred in Domesday. Baldwin de Redvers mentions the bridge of Eggheite. Among the Corporation records are three indulgences remitting forty days of penance granted at Donuhefd by Simon, Archbishop of Canterbury, July 1331, to all who contributed to the building or repair of the bridge of Christchurch de Twyneham; by Gervase, Bishop of Bangor, in 1367; and by Geoffrey, Archbishop of Damascus, 6th December, 1373. These indulgences are interesting as showing the importance attached to keeping the town's bridges in good repair.

On 28th January, 1855, Sir Edmund Lyons, afterwards "Lord Lyons of Christchurch", received a public welcome in the town, on his return from his brilliant action before Sebastopol. At Mudeford, near by, lived William Steward Rose, to whom Sir Walter Scott paid occasional visits. Scott is said to have corrected the proofs of "Marmion" while at Mudeford, where, in 1816, Coleridge was staying.

The town once had a leper hospital in Barrack Street, dedicated to St. Mary Magdalen, but all traces of it have disappeared.

The views around the town, especially perhaps that from the top of the church tower, are very extensive, from the New Forest on the east to the hills of Purbeck and Swanage on the west, while the view seawards includes the sweeping curve of Christchurch Bay, the English Channel, and the Isle of Wight. The conspicuous eminence seen on the west of the river is St. Catherine's Hill, where the monks first began to build their Priory, and on it some traces of a small chapel have been found. Hengistbury Head is a wild and deserted spot, with remains of an ancient fosse cut between the Stour and the sea, possibly for defensive purposes, as there is a rampart on each side of the entrenchment, to which there are three entrances.

At the end of the long High Street stands the Priory church, with examples to show of each definite period of our national ecclesiastical architecture, from an early Norman crypt to Renaissance chantries. The extreme length of the church is 311 feet, it being in this respect of greater length than the cathedrals of Rochester, Oxford, Bristol, Exeter, Carlisle, Ripon, and Southwell.

So vast a building naturally costs a large sum of money every year to keep in repair, and in this respect the parishioners of the ancient borough owe much to Bournemouth, whose visitors, by their fees, provide more than sufficient funds for this purpose. The wonderful purity of the air has been a great factor in preserving the crispness of the masonry, and in keeping the mouldings and carvings almost as sharp in profile as when they were first cut by the mediaeval masons.

According to tradition the first builders began to erect a church on St. Catherine's Hill, but by some miraculous agency the stones were removed every night, and deposited on the promontory between the two rivers, at a spot which became known by the Saxon name of Tweoxneham, or Twynham. The site for the church having been divinely revealed, the monks began to build on the sacred spot; but even then there was no cessation of supernatural intervention. Every day a strange workman came and toiled; but he never took any food to sustain him, and never demanded any wages. Once, when a rafter was too short for its allotted place, the stranger stretched it to the required length with his hands, and this miraculous beam is still to be seen within the church. When at last the building was finished, and the workmen were gathered together to see the fruits of their labour receive the episcopal consecration, the strange workman was nowhere to be found. The monks came to the conclusion that He was none other than Christ Himself, and the church which owed so much to His miraculous help became known as Christchurch, or Christchurch Twynham, although it had been officially dedicated to the Holy Trinity in the reign of Edward the Confessor, and the title of Christchurch does not appear to have been in general use until the twelfth century.

The early history of the foundation is very obscure. King Aethelstan is said to have founded the first monastery. More certain is it that, in the reign of Edward the Confessor, the church at Twynham was held by Secular Canons, who remained there until 1150, when they were displaced by Augustinians, or Austin Canons. The early church was pulled down by Ralf Flambard, afterwards Bishop of Durham. He was the builder of the fine Norman nave of Christchurch, and the still grander nave of Durham Cathedral. He was Chaplain to William Rufus, and his life was as evil and immoral as his skill in building was great. He died in 1128, and was buried in his great northern cathedral. Much of Flambard's Norman work at Christchurch remains in the triforium, the arcading of the nave, and the transepts. A little later we get the nave clerestory, Early English work, put up soon after the dawn of the thirteenth century, the approximate date also of the nave aisle vaulting, the north porch, and a chapel attached to the north transept. To the fourteenth century belong the massive stone rood-screen, and the reredos. The Perpendicular Lady Chapel was finished about the close of the thirteenth century, while the fourteenth century gave us the western tower, and most of the choir, although the vaulting was put up much later, as the bosses of the south choir aisle bear the initials W. E., indicating William Eyre, Prior from 1502 to 1520. Last of all in architectural chronology come the chantry of Prior Draper, built in 1529, and that of Margaret, Countess of Salisbury, niece of Edward IV, and mother of the famous Cardinal Pole. She was not destined, however, to lie here, as she was beheaded at the Tower in 1541.

The church now consists of nave, aisles, choir, unaisled transepts, western tower, and Lady Chapel. The cloisters and the domestic buildings have disappeared. It is highly probable that there was once a central tower, an almost invariable accompaniment of a Norman conventual church. There is no documentary evidence relating to a central tower, but the massive piers and arches at the corners of the transepts seem to indicate that provision was made for one, and the representation of a tower of two stages on an old Priory seal, may be either the record of an actual structure, or an intelligent anticipation of a feature that never took an architectural form, although it was contemplated.

An extraordinary epitaph is that on a tombstone near the north porch, which reads as follows:--

"We were not slayne but raysed, raysed not to life but to be byried twice by men of strife. What rest could the living have when dead had none, agree amongst you heere we ten are one. Hen. Rogers died Aprill 17 1641."

Several attempts have been made to explain the meaning of this epitaph, one to the effect that Oliver Cromwell, while at Christchurch, dug up some lead coffins to make into bullets, replacing the bodies from ten coffins in one grave. This solution is more ingenious than probable, as Cromwell does not appear to have ever been at Christchurch. Moreover, the Great Rebellion did not begin until over fifteen months later than the date on the tombstone. Another and more likely explanation is that the ten were shipwrecked sailors, who were at first buried near the spot where their bodies were washed ashore. The lord of the manor wished to remove the bodies to consecrated ground, and a quarrel ensued between him and Henry Rogers, then Mayor of Christchurch, who objected to their removal. Eventually the lord of the manor had his way, but the Mayor had the bodies placed in one grave, possibly to save the town the expense of ten separate interments.

The north aisle was originally Norman, and small round-headed windows still remain to light the triforium. In the angle formed by the aisle and the north wing of the transept stood formerly a two-storied building, the upper part of which communicated by a staircase with the north aisle, but all this has been destroyed. The north transept is chiefly Norman in character, with a fine arcade of intersecting arches beneath a billeted string-course. An excellent Norman turret of four stages runs up at the north-east angle, and is richly decorated, the third story being ornamented with a lattice-work of stone in high relief. East of the transept was once an apsidal chapel, similar to that still remaining in the south arm of the transept, but about the end of the thirteenth century this was destroyed and two chapels were built in its place. These contain beautiful examples of plate tracery windows.

Above these chapels is a chamber supposed to have been the tracing room wherein various drawings were prepared. The compartment has a window similar in style to those in the chapels below.

East of the transept is the choir, with a clerestory of four lofty Perpendicular windows of four lights each, with a bold flying buttress between the windows.

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