On the island there is a delightful little church standing on a knoll in the centre of a woodland glade, and amid the plantations in early summer one finds a wealth of rhododendron blossoms of all kinds, scarcely to be equalled anywhere else on the south coast. The island itself is shaped like a horseshoe, and has openings towards the east, with high ground running round the edge. The views from this high pine-clad ridge, which forms so prominent a feature of the island, are extremely beautiful, and tradition states that the great Turner himself when on a visit there said that he had seen few more exquisite effects of light and shade and form in landscape than are to be found in the panorama from the western side of the ridge overlooking the beautiful Channel and the Purbeck Hills. Indeed, sunshine or storm, sunset or sunrise, it would not be easy anywhere along the coast to find more exquisite views than are to be seen in the silvery waterways of Poole Harbour, the wide stretches of moorland which environ it, and the Dorset highlands which form so impressive a background. It would indeed be difficult for an artist to find no pictures in the misty beauties of the gleaming marshland; the purple and russet of the swelling heaths, streaked here and there with patches of golden gorse; the sand dunes, gleaming yellow and jade green all around; and the wild black heath stretching ridge on ridge from the indented shores until it reaches the steep slope of Nine Barrow Down, or merges with the distant view, where the famous Agglestone lies solitary and desolate. There is little doubt that Poole Harbour, which was probably centuries ago much more navigable than it is now, might have been made, and indeed might still be made, a place of some considerable utility as a naval station for a torpedo flotilla, and might even regain something of its prestige as a commercial port. Shut in to the south-west by the high chalk ridges of the Studland Hills, and sheltered on the east and north-east by the wooded slopes of Canford Cliffs and Parkstone, the harbour appears, when viewed from the highland, rather like a huge inland lake than a sheet of water connected directly with the sea. Not quite half the distance on the way to Wareham by the main channel, and on the northern shore of the harbour, stands the old-time and picturesque town of Poole.