Description
Longfleet, a township and an ecclesiastical parish in Canford Magna parish, Dorsetshire. The township lies averagely 1 mile NNE of Poole town and station on the L. & S.W.B., and includes part of that town and of the harbour. It has a post and money order office under Poole; telegraph office, Poole. Acreage, 1265 ; population of the township, 2750; of the ecclesiastical parish, 2972. The Poole Workhouse is here. The manor belongs to Lord Wimborne. The parish is more extensive than the township, and was constituted in 1836. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Salisbury; value, £179. Patron, Lord Wimborne. The church is modern, and was built chiefly by public subscription.
Parish Church
The old church of St. Mary was erected in 1833. In 1914-15 the church was rebuilt of Purbeck stone with Bath stone dressings, at a cost of £5,600; the church consists of chancel, nave, aisles and a tower containing 6 bells and a clock, the latter being a memorial to the Rev. J. L. Williams, vicar here for 23 years, who died in 1893: there are 14 stained windows, including one to the late Ald. Henry Burden, 22 years churchwarden of the parish, and many years a member of the Town Council of Poole, and there are other memorial windows: the reredos, erected in 1895, was the gift of Mrs. Williams, and in 1903 a handsomely carved oak pulpit was presented by Mr. James Clark: there are 750 sittings: an acre of land, presented by Lord Wimborne, was added to the churchyard in 1886.
The register dates from the year 1833.
