At the time of the Norman Conquest, Poole may have been a tiny fishing village. Large deposits of oyster shells,
dating from the late Saxon or early Norman period have been found Poole and Hamworthy Quays.
CHARTER OF 1248
Poole was granted its first charter in 1248 by William Longespée II, the crusading
Lord of Canford Manor.
The 70 marks which the town paid for the charter enabled William Longespée to go on crusade
to the Holy Land where he was killed in 1249. It return, Poole recieved a great measure of independence from the
manor to which it had previously belonged; the right to appoint a
'Port Reeve' (or Mayor); the right to hold its own court
rather than be subject to the manorial court of Canford Magna;
and the exemption from certain tolls and customs duties on goods shipped from the Port.
In William I's Domesday Book of 1087 the manor is recorded as extending out to Poole, Hamworthy, Longfleet
and Parkstone as well as including the extensive Canford Heath. It was known as Canford Magna but its position
declined as Poole rose in its own right as a town as well as the manor's port.
King Henry III (1216-1272) established the port as a depot for provisioning the fleet.
In 1342, the Port was made Borough and continued to grow in both size and wealth into modern times, its position as
the largest town in Dorset only usurped by the development of Bournemouth in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Poole was a limb of the Cinque Port of Winchelsea and a charter granted to the Port by the Mayor and Barons of the Cinque Port of Winchelsea on
April 13th, 1364, confirmed Poole's admiralty, jurisdiction and boundaries. The ceremony of Beating of the Water Bounds,
once abandoned but re-established in 1921, originates from from this charter.
By the 14th century it had prospered so much that it supplied four ships and ninety-four seamen for
the Seige of Calais. The Town Cellars,
dating from the 14th century, were used to store the important wool prior to its export to Europe.
The medieval port seems to have grown steadily in importance and, in 1433, the monarch made it Dorset's
Staple Port.
The medieval port had wide-ranging trading links - from the Baltic to Spain and even Italy.
