Bournemouth, Poole & Christchurch Part 2

In addition to a great literary talent Lady Charlotte had a considerable love for the more mechanical side of the bookmaker's art, and for many years Canford could boast of a printing press. In the year 1862 serious attention was turned to the production of beautiful and artistic printing. Although Lady Charlotte was the prime mover in this venture, she received valuable a.s.sistance from her son (Lord Wimborne), Miss Enid Guest, and other members of the family. It is thought that the first book printed here was _Golconda_, the work of a former tutor to the family. The most important books produced at this amateur press were Tennyson's _The Window_, and _The Victim_, both printed in 1867. One of the Miss Guests had met Tennyson while staying at Freshwater, and the poet sent these MSS. to Canford in order that they might be printed. On the t.i.tle page of _The Victim_ there is a woodcut of Canford Manor. A copy of this book was recently in the market. It contained an autograph inscription by the late Mr. Montague Guest to William Barnes, the Dorset poet. Only two other copies have changed hands since 1887, and these Canford press publications are eagerly sought by collectors. So long ago as 1896 a copy of _The Victim_ realized __75 at the sale of the Crampton Library.

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, Princ.i.p.al 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 bra.s.s, 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.

Comparatively few visitors to Bournemouth and Poole are aware to how large an extent the culture of lavender for commercial purposes is carried on at Broadstone, near Poole. Although it is only during comparatively recent years that the cultivation of lavender in this country has been sufficiently extensive to raise it to the dignity of a recognized industry, dried lavender flowers have been used as a perfume from the days of the Romans, who named the flower _lavandula_, from the use to which it was applied by them in scenting the water for the bath.

It is not known for certain when the lavender plant was brought into England. Shakespeare, in the _Winter's Tale_, puts these words into the mouth of Perdita:

"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.

Christchurch was once included in the New Forest, the boundaries of which "ran from Hurst along the seash.o.r.e to Christchurch bridge, as the sea flows, thence as the Avon extends as far as the bridge of Forthingbrugge" (Fordingbridge). Its inclusion in the New Forest probably accounts for the great number of Kings who visited it after the Norman Conquest, although King Ethelwold was here so early as 901, long before the New Forest was thought of. King John had a great liking for this part of the country, where the New Forest, Cranborne Chase, and the Royal Warren of Purbeck made up a hunting-ground of enormous extent.

King John was frequently at Christchurch, which was also visited by Edwards I, II, and III, by the seventh and eighth Henrys, and by Edward VI, the last of whom, we are told by Fuller, pa.s.sed through "the little town in the forest". With such a wealth of royal visitors it is fitting that the princ.i.p.al hotel in the town should be called the "King's Arms".

One of the members of Parliament for the borough was the eccentric Antony Etricke, the Recorder of Poole, before whom the Duke of Monmouth was taken after his capture following the defeat at Sedgemoor. The unfortunate prince was found on s.h.a.g's Heath, near Horton, in a field since called "Monmouth's Close".

An interesting reference to the place which has been missed by all the town's historians, including that indefatigable antiquary, Walcott, occurs in "The Note-Book of Tristram Risdon", an early seventeenth-century ma.n.u.script preserved in the Library of the Dean and Chapter of Exeter. The entry is as follows:--

"Baldwyn de Ridvers, the fifth, was Erl of Devonshire after the death of Baldwyn his father, which died 29 of Henry III. This Baldwyn had issue John, which lived not long, by meanes whereof the name of Ridvers failed, and th'erldom came unto Isabell sister of the last Baldwyn, which was maried unto William de Fortibus, Erl of Albemarle. This Lady died without issue. Neere about her death shee sold th'ile of Weight, and her mannor of Christchurch unto King Edward I for six thowsand mark, payd by the hands of Sir Gilbert Knovile, William de Stanes, and Geffrey Hecham, the King's Receivers."

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 (i.e. the marshy island), 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHRISTCHURCH PRIORY FROM WICK FERRY

This is one of the finest churches of non-Cathedral rank in the country, both with regard to size and its value to students of architecture. It is larger than many a Cathedral.]

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.

The out-of-the-way position of the Priory no doubt accounts for the slight and fragmentary references to it in early chronicles, the only old writer of note to mention it being Knyghton (_temp._ Richard II), who speaks of it as "the Priory of Twynham, which is now called Christchurch". Even Camden, many years later, merely says that "Christchurch had a castle and church founded in the time of the Saxons". It is mentioned in the Domesday Survey, when its value was put at __8 yearly, an increase of two pounds since the days of Edward the Confessor. The Cartulary of the Priory is in the British Museum, but it contains no notes of architectural interest.

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 t.i.tle 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 ma.s.sive 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 doc.u.mentary evidence relating to a central tower, but the ma.s.sive 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 antic.i.p.ation of a feature that never took an architectural form, although it was contemplated.

In the churchyard are tombstones to the memory of some of the pa.s.sengers lost in the wreck of the _Halsewell_, off Durlston Head, on 6th January, 1786. The churchyard is large, and a walk round it allows a view of the whole of the north side of the church. On the south side a modern house and its grounds have displaced the cloisters and the domestic buildings attached to the foundation. Prominent features on the north side are a circular transept stairway, rich in diaper work, the arcading round the transept, the wide windows of the clerestory of the choir, and the upper portion of the Lady Chapel. The fifteenth-century tower is set so far within the nave as to leave two s.p.a.ces at the ends of the aisles, one used as a vestry, the other as a store-room. In the spandrels of the tower doorway are two shields charged with the arms of the Priory and of the Earls of Salisbury. Above the doorway is a large window, and above this again a niche containing a figure of Christ. The octagonal stair turret is at the north-east angle. The north porch, much restored, is of great size, and its side walls are of nearly the same height as the clerestory of the nave. On the west side is a recess with shafts of Purbeck marble and foliated cusps. Around the wall is a low stone seat, used, it is said, by the parishioners and others who came to see the Prior on business. The roof has some very beautiful groining, much restored in 1862. Above the porch is a lofty room, probably used as the muniment room of the Priory. Entrance to the church from this porch is through a double doorway of rich Early English work.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PRIORY RUINS, CHRISTCHURCH]

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 ash.o.r.e. 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 b.u.t.tress between the windows.

The whole of this part of the church is Perpendicular, the choir aisle windows are very low, and the curvature of the sides of the arches is so slight that they almost appear to be straight lines. The choir roof is flat, and is invisible from the exterior of the church. It is probable that at one time a parapet ran along the top of the clerestory walls, similar to that on the aisle walls, but if so it has disappeared, giving this portion of the choir a somewhat bare appearance. The Lady Chapel is to the east of the choir and presbytery, and contains three large Perpendicular windows on each side; part of the central window on the north side is blocked by an octagonal turret containing a staircase leading to St. Michael's Loft, a large room above the Chapel. The large eastern window of five lights is Perpendicular. The original purpose of the loft above the Chapel is uncertain, and it has been used for a variety of purposes. It was described as "St. Michael's Loft" in 1617, and in 1666 the parishioners pet.i.tioned Bishop Morley for permission to use it as a school, describing it as having been "heretofore a chapter-house". The loft is lighted by five two-light windows having square heads and with the lights divided by transoms. The eastern wall has a window of three lights. Very curious are the corbels of the dripstones and the grotesquely carved gargoyles. The south sides of the Lady Chapel and choir correspond very closely with the north. This portion of the church is not so well known as the north side, as private gardens come close up to the walls.

The Norman apsidal chapel still remains on the eastern side of the south transept. This has a semi-conical roof with chevron table-moulding beneath it, and cl.u.s.ters of shafts on each side at the spring of the apse. Of the two windows one is Norman and the other Early English. On the northern side of the apse is an Early English sacristy. The south side of the transept was strengthened by three b.u.t.tresses, and contains a depressed segmental window much smaller than the corresponding window of the north transept. The south side of the nave has, externally, but little interest as compared to the north side, for the cloisters, which originally stood here, have been pulled down. Traces of the cloister roof can still be seen, also a large drain, and an aumbry and cupboard built into the thickness of the wall. There are also the remains of a staircase which probably led to a dormitory at the western end.