POOLE HARBOUR FROM CONSTITUTIONAL HILL
Near Poole is Canford Manor, the seat of Lord Wimborne and the "Chene Manor" of the Wessex novels. There was a house here in very early times, and in the sixteenth year of his reign King John, by letter-close, informed Ralph de Parco, the keeper of his wines at Southampton, that it was his pleasure that three tuns "of our wines, of the best sort that is in your custody", should be sent to Canford. In the fifth year of Henry III the King addressed the following letter to Peter de Mauley:—
"You are to know that we have given to our beloved uncle, William, Earl of Sarum, eighty chevrons (cheverons) in our forest of Blakmore, for the rebuilding of his houses (ad domos) at Caneford. Tested at Westminster, 28th July."
The present house occupies the site of the old mansion of the Longspées 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.
Lady Charlotte Guest, mother of the late Lord Wimborne, was a distinguished Welsh scholar, whose translation of the Mabinogion gave an extraordinary impulse to the study of Celtic literature and folk-lore in England. She was twice married, her first husband being Sir J. J. Guest, and her second Mr. Schreiber, member of Parliament for Poole.
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 assistance 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 title 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, 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.
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.