the world is not enough

...no, not some hidden environmental message but exactly what it says on the tin. Read on...

After the recent floods, I thought I would take a little walk around Holmebridge, East & West Holme and East Stoke. These hamlets and villages lie just above the water meadows in the Frome valley between Wool and Wareham. The remains of Bindon Abbey (Cistercian), St. Mary's Church and Holme Priory (Cluniac) within the floodplain itself, suggest that a much drier climate existed one thousand years ago than does today. Under normal circumstances, the river Frome is a small and gentle river surrounded by grazing land. However, after periods of heavy rain, we usually see a degree of flooding, which is precisely why the water meadows are there, but it doesn't normally look like this!

I took this image from the C17th Holme Bridge looking across the floodwaters towards Wareham. The hamlet of East Holme is out of view on the left and is where you will find Holme Priory. The original, late C16th house, now forms the kitchen of the current property, which underwent enlargement and remodelling c1770, c1800 and c1840 by successive members of the Bond family. The present owner, William Bond, owns a diary that belonged to one of his ancestors, a certain John Bond, who worked in Queen Elizabeth's secret service and helped Sir Francis Drake on numerous assignments. Possibly to blow a raspberry at England's arch-enemy, he adopted the royal motto of King Philip of Spain Non sufficit orbis as the Bond Family's motto - The world is not enough.

So, is it just a coincidence that Ian Fleming wrote about a fictional secret agent called James Bond and that we have a Bond film with the same title as the Bond family motto? Probably not, because Ian Fleming was a boarder at the Durnford School in Langton Matravers, which is just the other side of the Purbeck Ridge. Other local surnames of the Dorset gentry include Strangways and Drax. Now where have we come across those before...