A LONELY LADY

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LX, Issue 11201, 25 August 1933, Page 4

A LONELY LADY

HERMIT WOMAN OP BRANKSEA. On Britain's strangest island a few miles from Bournemouth, lives the hermit woman- of the south coast (states a correspondent ! of the Sunday : Chronicle) . . • She is Mrs Robert Bonham Christie. who is the only lady of Branksea Island, where nature runs wild find giant rats, rabbits, and cows roam freely. Holiday-makers are mystified by Branksea Island. ? It has a magnificent castle, a large church, and a number of picturesque cottages. .... It ; looks, temptingly beautiful. But nobody is allowed to set foot on it. Branksea is forbidden; territory and lisis been for six years. The stewards of’ Mrs Christie have strict instructions to-see that the Island remains as isolated as any in the South Seas. Mrs Christie, who bought Branksea for £125,000, lives alone; Not in the castle, blit in a tiny cottage. Yet the .castle and the church are kept in . excellent repair, rand so is the sea-wall. A In a self-contained little kingdom, five miles in circumference, well wooded, but silent,and deserted, this Crusoe woman rules it in solitude. Even the stewards do not sleep on the island; they return each night to their homes on the mainland. : This strange woman “Crusoe” is seldom seen by the inhabitants of the mainland, for she sleeps out the daylight hours. But fishermen returning to Poole at sunset occasionally observe her at one of the castle windows, examining the’ harbour through a telescope. 1 Sometimes, i when it is moonlight, she can be seen patrolling her lonely island home through the early hours of .the morning. Mrs Christie is. a passionate lover of animals. She is said to have stated that she would like to travel all over, the world opening every cage. This being impossible, . she has done the next best thing, and has made her island a sanctuary for wild creatures. v