r way in the
open day past Christchurch to the New Forest.

On a tombstone at Kinson we may read:--

"A little tea, one leaf I did not steal;
For guiltless blood shed I to God appeal;
Put tea in one scale, human blood in t'other,
And think what 'tis to slay thy harmless brother".

The villagers of Kinson are stated to have all been smugglers, and to
have followed no other occupation, while it is said that certain deep
markings on the walls of the church tower were caused by the constant
rubbing of the ropes used to draw up and lower the kegs of brandy and
the cases of tea.

That many church towers in the neighbourhood were used for the storage
of illicit cargoes is well known, and the sympathies of the local clergy
were nearly always on the side of the smugglers in the days when a keg
of old brandy would be a very acceptable present in a retired country
parsonage. Occasionally, perhaps, the parson took more than a passive
interest in the proceedings. A story still circulates around the
neighbourhood of Poole to the effect that a new-comer to the district
was positively shocked at the amount of smuggling that went on. One
night he came across a band of smugglers in the act of unloading a
cargo. "Smuggling," he shouted. "Oh, the sin of it! the shame of it! Is
there no magistrate, no justice of the peace, no clergyman, no minister,
no----"

"There be the Parson," replied one of the smugglers, thinking it was a
case of sickness.

"Where? Where is he?" demanded the stranger.

"Why, that's him a-holding of the lanthorn," was the laconic reply.

It was early in the nineteenth century that a Mr. Tregonwell of
Cranborne, a Dorset man who owned a large piece of the moorland, found,
on the west side of the Bourne Valley, a sheltered combe of exceptional
beauty, where he built a summer residence (now the Exeter Park Hotel),
the first real house to be erected on the virgin soil of Bournemouth. A
little later the same gentleman also built some cottages, and the
"Tregonwell Arms", an inn which became known as the half-way house
between Poole and Christchurch, and so remained until it was pulled down
to make way for other buildings.

These, however, were isolated dwellings, and it was not until 1836 that
Sir George Gervis, Bart., of Hinton Admiral, Christchurch, commenced to
build on an extensive scale on the eastern side of the stream, and so
laid the foundations of the present town. Sir George empl