Lilliput, Dorset

Impresario Fred Karno who popularised the custard-pie-in-the-face comedy routine spent his last years in the village as a part-owner of an off-licence, bought with financial help from Charlie Chaplin, and died here in 1941 aged 75.

During the Second World War at one stage it provided Britain's only civilian air route: Poole Harbour was temporary home to the Imperial Airways/BOAC flying boat fleet, which had its passenger HQ at Salterns Marina.

Aside from an enclave behind Evening Hill, a local beauty spot with panoramic views over Poole Harbour,[6] modern development started in the later 1920s as more of the older estates were sold for suburban projects.

[citation needed] The dilemma of development is described in The Dorset Village Book: "much of Lilliput's woodland has disappeared, the sound of saws rasping through the trunks as prominent as the speeding traffic along the road to Sandbanks.

Who can blame anyone for wanting to come here to live, to enjoy the rich sunsets over Wareham Channel, to smell the sweet cool breezes which waft in from the bay, and to marvel at the view across Poole Harbour and Brownsea Island.