this is our 2nd investigation and spent a few hours at st
Andrews church in kinson
Bournemouth.
Kinson Parish, within the
Manor of
Canford Magna, is centred on the site of a
Saxon church. The parish boundaries extend far beyond Kinson
Village, taking in various hamlets, Cudnell (or
Bear Cross),
High Howe,
West Howe, Howe,
East Howe, and
Ensbury. These hamlets gave rise to the names of several
20th century housing estates, although the origins of their names is debatable. The 'howe' form appears to be an old
English word for a mound.[7] This could either be a topographical feature, as the gravel terraces along the south of the
River Stour have been carved into rounded promontories by small rills and streams; but 'howe' could also refer to the various burial mounds which formerly covered the slopes.
The area was historically used by the smuggler
Isaac Gulliver whose men would carry the contraband up from The Chines in
Poole Bay and take it across
Cranborne Chase to be distributed to patrons all over
Southern England.
Gulliver had several properties in the area; however, all of the contraband were stored in the tower of
St Andrew's Church (the marks of the ropes used to haul it up can still be seen in the soft sandstone walls of the tower) and in several stone graves in the churchyard which were constructed for this purpose and never saw a coffin. A tunnel was also reputed to exist to allow smugglers to escape to the local river under cover (this has never been proved, however).
Also in the churchyard is the grave of one
Robert Trotman, who was killed when trying to land contraband on the shore near
Poole. Smugglers at the time were regarded by some as folk heroes, as they circumvented high government taxes on goods such as alcohol, tobacco, etc. The presence of this grave openly in the churchyard, with its rhyming elegy to the deceased, is an interesting comment on the social status at the time of people who were technically criminals.
Near this church is a bridge over Millham's
Splash, a small offshoot of the River Stour
. In the early years of the twentieth century this was a ford, and while travelling by carriage from
Canford House to
Highcliffe Castle the future
Kaiser of
Germany became bogged in the water and had to be rescued by the locals. They had cause to regret this act before very long with the outbreak of
World War I.
Some descendants of Isaac Gulliver remained in Kinson and brought it a further notable connection.
Isaac's grandson Isaac Fryer lived at Kinson House, which passed to his daughter Ada
Russell. Ada's sister-in-law
Isabella Russell was the grandmother of
Agnes Sybil Thorndike, the actress, who spent several childhood holidays at Kinson. In the hamlet of Ensbury the
Rev. John Hiley Austen lived in the ancient Ensbury Manor. He was an antiquarian, collector of fossils, and the author of 'A
Guide to the
Geology of the
Isle of Purbeck and the
South-West Coast of
Hampshire'.
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- published: 22 Apr 2013
- views: 4016