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.