But before we go shall we ask the story of Corfe? The tales of the abbeys and castles are much alike and their end nearly always the same—dismantled by Henry, destroyed by Cromwell. Still, Corfe is very old; its records go back to Saxon times. How weird it is to think that in front of the towers that grimly guard the entrance King Edward the Martyr was stabbed by order of his stepmother, Elfrida, as he paused to quaff a goblet of wine. It happened more than a thousand years ago, and from that time until Cromwell’s gunpowder sent walls and towers tottering to destruction, the sequestered castle was the scene of intermittent turmoil and bloodshed. Sir Christopher Hatton built the more modern portions during the reign of Elizabeth, but Corfe brought him only trouble. In 1633 it passed from the possession of his descendant to Sir John Bankes, a loyal supporter of King Charles, and while he was active in court and field, his energetic wife held the castle against all comers. One siege she repulsed and the surrender in 1646 was brought about only by treachery. Brave Lady Bankes! The story of her gallant defense will not be forgotten while a single fragment of the old fortress remains on its bleak, wind-swept hill.
But they have told us that Lulworth and its cove are worth seeing and we are soon away over the moorland road. A strenuous ten miles it is, rough, stony, steep, with numerous gates to open and close between the fields, and in places the road is so overgrown with grass and heather as to be hardly discernible. But from the uplands which it traverses one may see the ocean on the left and to the right a long array of rolling hills and winding valleys, all in the purple glow of full-blown heather, with here and there a lonely cottage or group of trees. We begin a long descent, following the edge of the hill toward the sea, and a sharp turn leads down a short steep grade into Lulworth.
The village some years ago had merely a few thatched cottages nestling beneath the high hills to the landward, but of late Lulworth has assumed airs as a trippers’ resort in the summertime, and the red-tiled villas rather spoil its old-world effect. Lulworth would be of no more note than other villages scattered along the south coast were it not for its peculiar cove, an almost circular, basinlike depression a few hundred yards in diameter; the sea enters it through a narrow opening in the cliffs. We were able to take the car down to the very margin of the water. An angular, red-whiskered fisherman approached us and in broad South Country speech offered to row us across the cove. We acquiesced in deference to his story of slack times and hard luck. The water of the cove has a depth of sixty feet near the center and in old days offered shelter to smugglers’ smacks. From the high cliffs on the opposite side we had a magnificent view of the rough coast line, a medley of gray, green and white, stretching along the foam-flecked sea.
We soon regain the main road and pass Lulworth Castle but a little way from the village—a massive, rectangular structure with circular, crenelated towers at each corner. It is not of great antiquity, having been built during the reign of Elizabeth, who is reputed to have visited it, and King James came here to escape the plague in London.
Our route carries us back to Wareham, a sleepy, shrunken town with little to suggest its strenuous history. Indeed, one writer declares that no town in England has undergone more calamities in the shape of sieges and conflagrations from the early wars with the Danes down to the capture of the place by Cromwell’s forces. It is pleasantly situated on a strip of meadowland between two small rivers, and today has about two thousand people. Its wall, built more than a thousand years ago, may still be traced throughout its entire course and proves Wareham once of much greater extent than at present.
Wimborne Minster takes its name from the church whose square towers with odd minaretlike pinnacles loom over the town as we approach it from the south. And rightly should the name of the minster predominate, for it is the redeeming feature of the commonplace Dorset town. But it is quite enough—few English churches have a greater store of curious relics. The chained library of about two hundred and fifty huge volumes, each held to its shelf by a heavy, rusty chain, is unique; but as one reads the ponderous titles of the books he wonders that such precaution should have been deemed necessary. Still, there were no “six best sellers” in the day when this library was established, and even heavy theological treatises in Latin and Greek may have been in demand.
Not less curious is the orrery clock, five hundred years old, which illustrates the astronomical ideas of its time in compelling the sun to make a circuit of the dial every day, while the moon occupies a month. The sense of humor that mixes itself with the solemnity of so many English churches finds expression here in an odd, gnomelike automaton on the western tower that goes through strange contortions every quarter hour. One cannot but wonder just what is in the huge chest—unopened for centuries—hewn from a single log and fastened with great bunglesome locks; but most likely it contains records and documents pertaining to the church. But all these marvels are nothing to those which Wimborne Minster once possessed but which have disappeared; a piece of the true cross and one of the manger in which the Lord was born; some of the earth from the Bethlehem stable and a few hairs from Christ’s head; a thigh bone of St. Agatha; a few of St. Philip’s teeth; a joint of St. Cecelia; the hair shirt of St. Thomas a’ Becket and a small phial of his blood. Verily Wimborne Minster was well supplied with the stock in trade of the early church.
But the minster has associations of a less mythical nature. In the chancel is the grave of Aethelred, King of the West Saxons, brother of Alfred the Great, who was slain in 871. A fine brass is set in the slab over the grave, but this is doubtless of more recent date. There are tombs of several crusaders, though the effigies have been sadly mutilated. But the most curious tomb is a gilded coffin set in a niche in the wall, a little below the level of the floor. On the coffin is the date 1693, which the occupant at one time fixed as the date for his demise, but this did not occur until ten years later. He expressed a wish to be buried “neither under the ground nor above it; neither in the church nor out of it” and left an annuity of five pounds to keep his coffin touched up yearly—all of which was faithfully carried out, for thus did the church once lend itself to clownish eccentricity.
Wimborne Minster delights in its relics, its traditions, and its medieval customs. The verger told us of one of the latter that is perhaps founded on more of common sense than many of the old-time practices, and which, with that continuity of custom that confronts one everywhere in England, still prevails. The vestrymen pass through the church at times during the services and prod the sleeping brethren with long black rods—not a bad idea, after all, though one that could hardly be inaugurated without precedent.
So much of our glimpse of Wimborne Minster; it is late and we are bound for Southampton, forty or more miles away as we propose to go. The road to Ringwood and from thence to Lymington leads through an open, heathlike country—stretches of rank-growing ferns interspersed with the vivid purple of the heather. A little beyond Ringwood we enter New Forest, though in this section little of the forest—as one thinks of the word now—is to be seen. There are occasional groups of trees, but the prevailing feature of the landscape is the fern-clad heath. A cheerless road it is, but open, finely surfaced and nearly level, with nothing to hinder the mad rush of our motor.