Brownsea Island has been on my wish list since I was about 10 and joined the Girl Guides. I read ‘Scouting for Boys’ – Robert Baden-Powell’s handbook to the Scouting movement he began – and learnt that it all started with a camp at Brownsea Island off the coast of Dorset. I was immediately hooked on the idea of visiting this island for myself (maybe it’s where I got my fascination for islands from?) but for some reason it took me well over forty years to do so.
After waiting so long and with my anticipation levels going through the roof, would it live up to my expectations?
Spoiler alert: it not only lived up to my expectations, it surpassed them. Phew!
Brownsea Island sits in Poole Harbour, Europe’s largest natural harbour. It’s one of several islands, but is the only one that is easily accessible. It’s owned by the National Trust and between March and October boats go back and forth throughout the day from Poole Quay. It’s also possible to get a boat from Sandbanks, but these are less frequent.
Have a look at this map to see exactly where Brownsea Island is.
Although National Trust members can visit the island for free (it’s about £10 for non-members) everyone has to pay for the ferry.
Wanting to spend as much time as possible on the island we were in the queue for the first ferry. It takes about 20 minutes to get across to the island and you get good views of the harbour and coastline from the open top of the boat.
This magical island in Poole Harbour was not only the beginning of the Scouting movement, but was also the inspiration for ‘Whispering Island’ in The Famous Five books written in the 1940s -1960s by Enid Blyton.
In Enid’s time, Brownsea Island was owned by the very reclusive Mrs Bonham Christie. She would not allow visitors and so it’s unlikely that Enid ever actually visited. This didn’t stop her writing about it as the owner’s inhospitality only added to the sense of mystery. In ‘Five Have a Mystery to Solve’, Enid referred to it as ‘Keep Away Island’.
Mary Bonham Christie bought Brownsea Island in 1927. She wanted to return the island to nature and started by ejecting all 200 of the island’s residents. Of course this wasn’t popular and resulted in a long legal battle. A fire raged over a lot of the island 1934 which some think was caused deliberately by those who were up against her.
Mrs Bonham Christie, however, blamed it on the Boy Scouts and used it as an excuse to ban their visits as well.
She was strongly against animal cruelty and had banned hunting and fishing as one of her first actions. She planned to return the island to nature and allow the wildlife to live unfettered by human interference. Some of this was misguided though, as she also released the farm animals into the wild. Obviously it was always going to be difficult for domesticated farm animals to survive on their own means and they didn’t fare well. I saw pictures of starving cows with all their ribs showing. Quite heart-breaking, in a way even more so, because she’d had good intentions.
Her minimal interference in the nature of the island did do some good though. It meant the wildlife could really flourish and the island is now a haven for seabirds, rare red squirrels, sika deer and, surprisingly, peacocks. The National Trust website has more information on the types of wildlife that can best be seen at different times of the year.
Mrs Bonham Christie died in 1961. In lieu of death duties, the island passed into the care of the National Trust. However, the National Trust was expected to pay the Treasury £100,000 which they didn’t have and so they came up with an arrangement where the bill was covered by the Dorset Wildlife Trust, the Scouting and Guiding Movement, and the John Lewis Partnership (yes, the department store company!)
For their money, the Dorset Wildlife Trust got to manage half the island. The Scouting and Guiding Movement regained access for their members to camp on the island. And the John Lewis Partnership got a 99 year lease to use the castle and gardens for staff holidays.
Landing on the pier in the village (just the castle and a few other buildings really), we headed straight to the cafe which is housed in what used to be the coastguard station. It was quiet and we sat in the garden overlooking the harbour with our coffees enjoying the peace and the views. Later, we popped back to buy a couple of pasties to take with us for lunch and it was heaving.
One of the village buildings has been converted into a bit of a museum with lots of information about the island. We checked this out and then followed the path along the back of the castle to the nature reserve and lagoon.
The aerial image above from the National Trust’s website shows the lagoon and the village. This seemed to be the area where the majority of visitors stayed and once we started to explore the rest of the island, we saw very few people.
The lagoon is where the the Dorset Wildlife Trust can be found. Paths and boardwalks form a circular route passing bird hides and other viewpoints. We met a couple of wardens who were happy to stop and chat too. Unless you’re a member of the Dorset Wildlife Trust, they ask for a £2 donation to visit this area.
After completing the circuit in the nature reserve by the lagoon we popped back to the cafe to buy pasties to take with us for lunch. On the way we ran into some of the islands wildlife – the peacocks. There were lots of them (actually mostly peahens, but a few peacocks too) and they seemed to all hang out near the castle.
The castle (as it is now known), had been built as a military blockhouse during the reign of Henry VIII. In 1722 the island was bought by William Benson, an architect and literary scholar. He converted it into a residence. He also planted 10,000 trees on the island. Over the years, different owners added improvements to the castle and the grounds. It was rebuilt following a fire in 1896 which completely gutted it. These days the castle is run as a hotel for John Lewis staff and there’s no access to the general public.
Leaving this area behind, it was time to head into the wilds to explore the rest of the island. This small island (it’s only 1.5 miles long) has it all – as well as the castle and the lagoon there are woodlands, heaths, wetlands, hills, seashores, the remains of a bombed out village, a scout camp, church, and relics from an abandoned pottery.
The house in the picture below is The Villa. This used to be the vicarage, but is now leased by the Dorset Wildlife Trust. They have some displays, but the best bit is this lovely tranquil garden.
As we walked up through the woods gaining higher ground, we got some amazing views over the harbour. At times it didn’t feel like we were in England at all.
Now we were away from the castle and ferry area we hardly saw anyone else. When we came across this swing we just had to make the most of it and stopped for lunch.
You know how you often see these swings in beautiful places on Instagram? They always look so idyllic? But then sometimes the poster flips their camera round and shows the huge queue of people waiting their turn to sit on it for a quick photo? Well that’s not the case here. We were the only people at this swing. One couple walked past whilst we were eating our lunch and that was it.
After lunch we continued to follow the paths round the island. A chunk of the island on the north side has no public access so the path skirts inland towards the west side of the island.
In 1853 Brownsea Island had been sold to a man called Colonel William Petrie Waugh. He had thought the white mud he’d spotted was the kind of clay that could be turned in porcelain and that he’d discovered at get-rich-quick scheme. He built a pottery and brought over 100 people to live on the island and work in his pottery. It turned out the clay wasn’t what he thought, but not one to give up he turned to making drainage pipes and bricks instead.
Colonel Waugh was responsible for a lot of the building on the island – he built St Mary’s Church, the clock tower and reclaimed the land that was later turned into the lagoon to use as a grazing pasture for his cows. Unfortunately bricks and pipes didn’t make him as much money as porcelain would have done and with all his spending he went bankrupt and had to leave the island.
It’s possible today to go down the steep steps to the beach where the pier that was used for the boats transporting the pipes can be seen. The beach is littered with bits of broken pottery.
The village of Maryland, named after Colonel Waugh’s wife, was built in 1853 to house the pottery workers. It was abandoned when Mrs Bonham Christie evicted the residents from the island. It began to fall into dereliction and its demise was hastened by both the fire and by bombing in World War II. The remains were considered unsafe to visitors and in 1964 the National Trust got the Marines to finish what the Germans had started and blow up the remaining bits of the village. Very little is left to see today.
Pretty much the last thing to see on the island is the Scout camp. Lieutenant-General Robert Baden-Powell, already well-known for his part in the Boer War at the Siege of Mafeking, had the idea of bringing a group of boys from different backgrounds together to learn about nature, survival skills and team-work. He believed this would be character building and if successful could be expanded into a wider movement.
On the 1st of August in 1907 he brought 20 boys over to Brownsea for eight days of camping and activities. It was the success he had imagined and the following year he published his book, ‘Scouting for Boys’. The movement took off and in 1910 the Girl Guides was started for girls who had complained they were missing out on the fun their brother were having. There are now around 50 million Scouts and Guides around the world.
As the Scouting movement regained use of part of island following the death of Mrs Bonham Christie, Scouts from all over the world now come here each year. The facilities are much better than anything those original boys could have dreamed of. An area of new wooden buildings, shaped like tents, houses toilets, showers and a shop as well as a heritage centre dedicated to the history of the Scouting movement.
Leaving the Scout area we strolled along the beach a short way before climbing up into the woods that cover a lot of the central part of the island.
From here it was a short walk back to the village to join the queue for the last ferry back to Poole.
So would you like to visit Brownsea Island? Which bit would interest you most? Were you a Girl Guide or in the Scouts when you were younger? Have you ever stayed in the castle on a John Lewis holiday? – I’d love to know what it’s like inside. Share you thoughts and comments below.
Books to read that are relevant to your visit
- Scouting for Boys by Robert Baden-Powell
- Five Have a Mystery to Solve by Enid Blyton
- Enid Blyton and Her Enchantment with Dorset by Andrew Norman
- The Island Murders by Rachel McLean (Book 3 in a series of crime novels set in Dorset. This one has a murder at Brownsea Island.)
- Caroline Hall’s Tales of Brownsea Island books (These children’s books about the animals who live on Brownsea include Cyril the Squirrel, Dylan the Deer, Hector the Hedgehog, Pimpernel the Peacock, and Rodney the Rabbit)
Like this? Read these next:
- Exploring Studland Bay from Sandbanks to Old Harry Rocks
- Swanage – a cute little town I really want to explore properly
- An Evening Wander from Bournemouth to Sandbanks
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