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 seashore 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, passed through "the little town in the forest". With such a wealth of royal visitors it is fitting that the principal 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 Shag'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 manuscript 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.