BOURNEMOUTH PIER AND SANDS FROM EASTCLIFF
Besides offering the usual attractions, Bournemouth Pier is the centre of a very fine system of steamship sailings to all parts of the coast.
A century ago the whole of the district between Poole on the west and Christchurch on the east was an unpeopled waste of pine and heather, and the haunt of gangs of smugglers. So great had the practice of smuggling grown in the eighteenth century, that, in 1720, the inhabitants of Poole presented to the House of Commons a petition, calling attention to "the great decay of their home manufacturers by reason of the great quantities of goods run, and prayed the House to provide a remedy". In 1747 there flourished at Poole a notorious band of smugglers known as the "Hawkhurst Gang", and towards the close of the same century a famous smuggler named Gulliver had a favourite landing-place for his cargoes at Branksome Chine, whence his pack-horses made their way through the New Forest to London and the Midlands, or travelled westward across Crichel Down to Blandford, Bath, and Bristol.
Gulliver is said to have employed fifty men, who wore a livery, powdered hair, and smock frocks. This smuggler amassed a large fortune, and he had the audacity to purchase a portion of Eggardon Hill, in west Dorset, on which he planted trees to form a mark for his homeward-bound vessels. He also kept a band of watchmen in readiness to light a beacon fire on the approach of danger. This state of things continued until an Act of Parliament was passed which made the lighting of signal fires by unauthorized persons a punishable offence. The Earl of Malmesbury, in his Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, relates many anecdotes and adventures of Gulliver, who lived to a ripe old age without molestation by the authorities, for the reason, it is said, that during the wars with France he was able to obtain, through his agents in that country, valuable information of the movement of troops, with the result that his smuggling was allowed to continue as payment for the services he rendered in disclosing to the English Government the nature of the French naval and military plans.
Warner, writing about 1800, relates that he saw twenty or thirty wagons, laden with kegs, guarded by two or three hundred horsemen, each bearing three tubs, coming over Hengistbury Head, and making their way in the open day past Christchurch to the New Forest.
On a tombstone at Kinson we may read:—
"A little tea, one leaf I did not steal;
For guiltless blood shed I to God appeal;
Put tea in one scale, human blood in t'other,
And think what 'tis to slay thy harmless brother".
The villagers of Kinson are stated to have all been smugglers, and to have followed no other occupation, while it is said that certain deep markings on the walls of the church tower were caused by the constant rubbing of the ropes used to draw up and lower the kegs of brandy and the cases of tea.
That many church towers in the neighbourhood were used for the storage of illicit cargoes is well known, and the sympathies of the local clergy were nearly always on the side of the smugglers in the days when a keg of old brandy would be a very acceptable present in a retired country parsonage. Occasionally, perhaps, the parson took more than a passive interest in the proceedings. A story still circulates around the neighbourhood of Poole to the effect that a new-comer to the district was positively shocked at the amount of smuggling that went on. One night he came across a band of smugglers in the act of unloading a cargo. "Smuggling," he shouted. "Oh, the sin of it! the shame of it! Is there no magistrate, no justice of the peace, no clergyman, no minister, no——"
"There be the Parson," replied one of the smugglers, thinking it was a case of sickness.
"Where? Where is he?" demanded the stranger.
"Why, that's him a-holding of the lanthorn," was the laconic reply.
It was early in the nineteenth century that a Mr. Tregonwell of Cranborne, a Dorset man who owned a large piece of the moorland, found, on the west side of the Bourne Valley, a sheltered combe of exceptional beauty, where he built a summer residence (now the Exeter Park Hotel), the first real house to be erected on the virgin soil of Bournemouth. A little later the same gentleman also built some cottages, and the "Tregonwell Arms", an inn which became known as the half-way house between Poole and Christchurch, and so remained until it was pulled down to make way for other buildings.
These, however, were isolated dwellings, and it was not until 1836 that Sir George Gervis, Bart., of Hinton Admiral, Christchurch, commenced to build on an extensive scale on the eastern side of the stream, and so laid the foundations of the present town. Sir George employed skilful engineers and eminent architects to plan and lay out his estate, so that from the beginning great care was taken in the formation and the selection of sites for the houses and other buildings, with the result that Bournemouth is known far and wide as the most charming, artistic, and picturesque health resort in the country. This happy result is due, in a large measure, to the care with which its natural features have been preserved and made to harmonize with the requirements of a large residential population. It is equally gratifying to note that successive landowners, and the town's Corporation, following the excellent example set by Sir George Gervis, continue to show a true conservative instinct in preserving all that is worthy of preservation, while ever keeping a watchful eye on any change which might detract from the unique beauty of Bournemouth.
