Winding waters embrace pretty Christchurch on the Dorset coast, where ancient treasures stand silent among the bustling holidaymakers and rippling sails
ON ABRIGHT summer’s morning, Christchurch Quay is full of life. Children play on the grass, while the less energetic sun themselves on benches overlooking the water. Holidaymakers wait for the ferry that slowly comes into view, picking its way through the boats and drifts of buoys to moor at the old stone quay. The steady clatter of halyards against the masts in the nearby sailing club provide a suitably nautical accompaniment to the calling gulls and the happy shouts of the youngsters.
Upstream, there are views of the River Stour as it gently meanders its way down to the town where the River Avon joins it; the two winding their way together through the harbour before reaching the English Channel at Mudeford. Views out to the open sea are blocked to the south by the low line of Hengistbury Head – the ridge which provides a natural barrier for the lagoon-like harbour – and closer inshore by banks of sedges, their feathery seedheads swaying in the breeze. Looking inland, past the Victorian bandstand, the handsome tower of Christchurch Priory rises above a sea of green to dominate the skyline as a splendid reminder of the town’s long history.
The geography of Christchurch, with its two rivers and natural harbour, explains the growth of this historic Dorset market town. Founded by Saxon missionaries in the 7th century, it grew as a trading centre, thanks to the rivers, which enabled goods to travel down from inland towns, such as Salisbury and Blandford, to its harbour and the continental markets beyond. By the time of King Alfred, the town – known as Tweoxneam or
Twynham, from the old English ‘betweoxn’, meaning ‘between’, and ‘ēam’, meaning ‘rivers’ – was of enough strategic importance for the King to order defences to be built to protect it from the Danes in 890 AD. The Normans continued to develop the town; first, by building a priory in 1094 on the site of the Anglo-Saxon church, and then, in the early 1100s, with the construction of a castle. Medieval Christchurch grew rapidly, with a weekly market plus two annual fairs and, from 1307, two Members of Parliament. After this growth spurt, however, development in the town slowed down, and Christchurch began a gradual decline – thanks, in part, to the silting up of the harbour – and its population remained at approximately 1,000 well into the 18th century.
