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Read Ebook: The Master-Girl by Hilliers Ashton Buckland Arthur H Illustrator
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Ebook has 57 lines and 5164 words, and 2 pages
Poole Harbour looks delightful from Haven Point. At the edge of Brownsea Island the foam-flecked beach glistens in the sun. The sand-dunes fringing the enclosing sheet of water are yellow, the salt-marshes of the shallow pools stretch in surfaces of dull umber, brightened in parts by vivid splashes of green. On a calm day the stillness of utter peace seems to rest over the spot, broken only by the lapping of the waves, and the hoarse cries of the sea-birds as they search for food on the mud-banks left by the receding tide. With such a scene before us it is difficult to realize that only a mile or two distant is one of the most popular watering-places in England, with a throng of fashionable people seeking their pleasure and their health by the sea.
Little could the boyish Duke of Monmouth have then foreseen that fatal day, twenty years later, when he crossed the road from Salisbury again like a hunted animal in his vain endeavour to reach the shelter of the New Forest; and still less, perhaps, could his father have foreseen that Antony Etricke, whom he had made Recorder of Poole, would be the man before whom his hapless son was taken to be identified before being sent to London, and the Tower.
During the next hundred and thirty years Brownsea had various owners, including Colonel Waugh and the Right Hon. Frederick Cavendish Bentinck, who restored the castle and imported many beautiful specimens of Italian sculpture and works of art. At the end of 1900 the estate was bought by Mr. Charles Van Raalte, to whose widow it still belongs.
Shortly before his death Mr. Van Raalte wrote a brief account of his island home, which closed with the following lines:--
"All through the island the slopes are covered with rhododendrons, juniper, Scotch firs, insignis, macrocarpa, Corsican pines, and many other varieties of evergreens, plentifully mingled with cedars and deciduous forest trees. Wild fowl in great variety visit the island, and the low-lying land within the sea-wall is the favourite haunt of many sea-birds; and several varieties of plover, the redshank, greenshank, sandpiper, and snipe may be found there. The crossbill comes very often, and the green woodpecker's cry is quite familiar. But perhaps the most beautiful little winged creature that favours us is the kingfisher."
A prominent feature on the mainland as seen from Brownsea is the little Early English church of Arne, standing on a promontory running out into the mud-banks of the estuary, and terminating in a narrow tongue of land known as Pachin's Point. At one time Arne belonged to the Abbey of Shaftesbury, and it is said that the tenants of the estate, on paying their rent, were given a ticket entitling them to a free dinner at the Abbey when they were passing through Shaftesbury. The vast size of Poole Harbour is realized when we consider that, excluding the islands, its extent is ten thousand acres, and from no other spot does the sheet of water look more imposing than from the wooded heights and sandy shores of Brownsea. At low tide several channels can be traced by the darker hue of the water as it winds between the oozy mud-banks, but at high tide the whole surface is flooded, and there lies the great salt lake with her green islands set like emerald gems on a silver targe.
Eastwards from Bournemouth Pier the cliffs are bold and lofty, and are broken only by small chines or narrow gullies. On the summit of the cliff a delightful drive has been constructed, while an undercliff drive, extending for a mile and a half between Bournemouth Pier and Boscombe Pier, was formally opened with great festivities on 3rd June, 1914. Boscombe Chine, the only large opening on the eastern side of Bournemouth, must have been formerly rich in minerals, and Camden, who calls it "Bascombe", tells us that it had a "copperas house". On the eastern side of the Chine a spring has been enclosed, the water being similar to the natural mineral water of Harrogate. The whole of the Chine has been laid out as a pleasure garden, although care has been taken to preserve much of its natural wildness. Unlike most of the other chines along this stretch of shore, the landward termination of Boscombe Chine is very abrupt, which is the more remarkable as the little stream by which it is watered occupies only a very slight depression beyond the Christchurch road on its way down to the sea from Littledown Heath. Boscombe House stood formerly in the midst of a fine wood of Scotch pines. The estate is now being rapidly developed for residential purposes. The house was the home for many years of descendants of the poet Shelley, who erected a monument in Christchurch Priory to the memory of their illustrious ancestor. The house lies between the Christchurch road and the sea, and was almost entirely rebuilt by Sir Percy Shelley about the middle of the nineteenth century. The rapid growth of Boscombe may be gauged by the fact that between thirty and forty years ago Boscombe House and a few primitive cottages were the only buildings between Bournemouth and Pokesdown. Like her parent of Bournemouth, whom she closely resembles, Boscombe is built on what was once a stretch of sandy heaths and pine-woods. A pier was opened here in 1889 by the Duke of Argyll. It was built entirely by private enterprise, and it was not until 1904 that it was taken over by the Corporation. To the east of the pier the cliffs have been laid out as gardens, much of the land having been given by the owners of Boscombe House on their succeeding to the estate. The roads here are very similar to those
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