A long mile east of Wimborne station is Canford Magna, the mother parish of a large district.  The small church still retains a goodly portion of the original Norman structure.  The fine modern stained glass is worthy of notice, but the recent additions are in poor taste and too florid a style.  Near by is Canford Manor, an imposing pile belonging to Lord Wimborne and once the home of the Earls of Salisbury.  The greater part of the present house was designed by Sir Charles Barry, the architect of the Houses of Parliament.  The remainder dates from the early part of the nineteenth century, except “John O’Gaunt’s Kitchen”—­the only portion left of the ancient manor-house.  Canford village is of the model variety, each house bearing the “seal” of the lord of the manor.

From quite near Wimborne station delightful walks may be taken across the park, which, under certain reasonable restrictions, is open to the public.  To the south stretches the wide expanse of Canford Heath, which once upon a time extended to the sea at Canford Cliffs, now a fashionable part of Bournemouth.  Eastwards, crossed by the Ringwood road, is another series of heaths, sparsely inhabited and known by the various names of Hampreston, Parley Common, St. Leonard’s Common and Holt Heath.  There are few parts of Southern England where is so much idle land, apart from the New Forest, as in eastern Dorset.  These moors are beautiful for rambling and camping, but heartbreaking to any one with the mind of a Cobbett!

The direct Salisbury road climbs for ten miles gradually upwards, and passing Hinton Parva church on the right, and, about a mile farther, the site of a British village close to the road on the left, takes a lonely and rather dull course until it reaches the small hamlet of Knowlton, where there are the remains of a church built inside a round earthwork which has its walls outside the ditch, thus indicating, in all probability, a use religious rather than military and an unbroken tradition into Christian times.  The way continues in a north-easterly direction until it winds past the conspicuous tumulus, said to be a temple or place of justice, on the summit of Castle Hill, just short of the one-time important, but now much decayed market town of Cranborne.  The church here is an imposing and beautiful Early English erection, with some remains of an earlier Norman building.  A priory of Benedictines was founded at Cranborne in Saxon times by Aylward, but nothing of this still earlier building can now be traced.  The fine embattled tower dates from that era of fine towers—­the Perpendicular.  The west window is a memorial to the celebrated Dean of St. Paul’s—­Stillingfleet, a member of a family who once lived in one of the old cottages here.  The ancient pulpit will be noticed; this bears the initials of an abbot of Tewkesbury, who died in 1421.  Some wall paintings were discovered under a coat of distemper about twenty years ago, and there is a fine monument with recumbent figures to Sir Edward Hooper.