There is this essential difference between Charborough Park and “Welland House.” Charborough is very closely guarded from intrusion, and none who cannot show a real reason for entering is allowed through the jealously closed and locked gates of the lodges.
The residence of Lady Constantine was, however, very readily accessible, and, “as is occasionally the case with old-fashioned manors, possessed none of the exclusiveness found in some aristocratic settlements. The parishioners looked upon the park avenue as their natural thoroughfare, particularly for christenings, weddings, and funerals, which passed the squire’s mansion, with due considerations as to the scenic effect of the same from the manor windows.” So much to show the composite nature of the scene drawn in Two on a Tower.
The tower—the “Rings Hill Speer” of the story—stands in the park, at a considerable distance from the house on the other side of a gentle dip, but well within sight of the drawing-room windows. In between, across the turf and disappearing into the woodlands to right and left, roam the deer that so plentifully inhabit this beautiful domain. The tower is approached by roomy stone staircases, now overgrown with grass, moss, and fungi, and so far from it or its approaches being in “the Tuscan order of architecture,” they are designed in a most distinctive and aggressive Strawberry Hill Gothic manner. Built originally by Major Drax in 1796, and struck by lightning, it was rebuilt in 1839.
Returning now from this interlude and regaining Bailey Corner, we come to Sturminster Marshall, a place that now, for all the dignity of its name, is just a rustic village, with only that name and an ancient church that was the “Stour Minster” of the Earls of Pembroke, the Earls Marshal of England, to affirm its vanished importance. Its village green, bordered with scattered cottages, has a maypole, painted, like a barber’s pole, with vivid bands of red, white, and blue.
An expedition from this point, across the Stour to Shapwick, although a roundabout pilgrimage, is not likely to be an unrewarded exertion, for that is a village which, although unknown to the greater world, has a local fame that, so long as rustic satire lives, will assuredly not be allowed to die.
As may well be supposed, the Shapwick folk are by no means proud of their nickname, and it is therefore a little surprising to find an old and very elaborate weathervane in the village, surmounting the roof of a barn, and giving, in a quaintly silhouetted group, a pictorial representation of the scene. It seems that there were originally three more figures, behind the barrow, but they have disappeared. Perhaps this is evidence of attempts on the part of Shapwick folk to destroy the record of their shame.
A succession of pretty villages—Spetisbury, Charlton Marshall, Blandford St. Mary—enlivens the five miles of road between Sturminster Marshall and Blandford; and then Blandford itself, already described, is entered. Passing through it, and skirting the grounds of Bryanstone, the Stour, more beautiful than earlier on the route, is crossed, and the twin villages of Durweston and Stourpaine, one on either bank, are glimpsed. Then comes the large village of Shillingstone, still steadfastly rural, despite its size, and keeping to the ancient ways more markedly than Sturminster Marshall, for it not only shares with that village the peculiarity of owning a maypole, but a maypole of exceptional height, and one still dressed and decorated with every spring. This tall pole, tapering like the mast of a ship, is a hundred and ten feet in height, and most carefully guarded with wire stays against destruction by the stormy winds that in winter sweep down the valley of the Stour.
If we were to name the Shillingstone maypole in accordance with the date of its annual garlanding, it would rather be a “Junepole,” for it is on the 9th of that month that the pretty old ceremony and its attendant merrymakings are held. This apparently arbitrary selection of a date is explained by the old May Day games and rejoicings having been held on May 29th, in the years after the Restoration of Charles II. in 1660; and by the change from Old Style to New, more than a hundred and fifty years later. That change, taking away eleven days, converted what would have been May 29th into June 9th; and thus by gradual change this survival of the ancient pagan festival of Floralia is held when May Day has itself passed and become a memory.