THE slogan for Christchurch – Where Time is Pleasant – certainly sums up the ambient feel of the heritage town.

But with a thousand-year history, there are bound to also be a few idiosyncrasies amid its quaintness.

So thought local author W.A. Hoodless who set out to collate some surprising stories about the area’s background.

The result is the book Christchurch Curiosities – a quirky compendium of little-known stories and facts about the town which hugs the Avon.

On the subject of the Avon, did you know this river has the strange phenomenon of freezing the wrong way round? In past severe winters, it has frozen from the bottom to the top, rather than vice versa.

While this is likely to happen in arctic conditions in North America, no other river in England is believed to freeze in this fashion. But why?

As well as low enough temperatures, certain conditions are needed for ground ice to form (rather than the smooth plate which occurs on the surface of normal ponds and rivers). These include a gravel bed which promotes radiation, and clear water from a chalk stream – both of which the Avon has.

But mother nature is a cruel mistress, and by rights, Christchurch shouldn’t be here at all! The land on which it stands should have been washed away by the sea thousands of years ago – rising seas which separated England from the continent and, later, the Isle of Wight from the south coast.

The relatively strong headland at Hengistbury saved the day, with its ironstones which fell from the eroding cliffs to form a large shallow pile around the position of Long Groyne. By behaving like an enormous rubble groyne, the stones stopped erosion of the land, which is now Christchurch. Rising water wasn’t the only threat to the future of the area. On 27 June 1665 it was recorded that constant watch and ward was ordered day and night for better preservation of the town against plague and pestilence. No man coming from London was to be admitted to town for 20 days.

Also in the minutes of the past mayors and burgesses, we can learn that in 1695 a James Kitch was fined 12 shillings for unlawfully ploughing a common called Woore, depriving locals of their common right of herbage (the right to pasture their cattle). The money was given to the inhabitants as compensation, and was then later raised to 14 shillings to buy bread for the poor.

A couple of hundred years later, animals were still playing a big part in people’s lives, and a Reg Kitcher writing about his early years at Christchurch and Hinton Admiral 1910 – 39 remembers: “Nearly every working family needed to rear and fatten a pig. My father had one either in a sty or hung up indoors before having it treated by smoking at one of the accepted preparation centres at Christchurch.

“Whenever these pigs were killed it was always a harrowing time for me; I hated the screams of the victims and the shouts of the men. Mr George Barnes was the recognised official pig killer for the district and seeing him with his knife in his mouth, a rubber apron on and all the other tools of his trade was enough to make me take refuge around my mother’s skirts to hide.”

And there is so much more hidden beneath Christchurch, quite literally. Such as the 300-year-old tunnel and vaults, which run under the High Street, once used for smuggling and earmarked in the 1960s to house a night club.

“The more you research, the more unexpected things emerge from the fabric of the town,” said author William Hoodless, “which go well beyond matters of local interest.”

• Christchurch Curiosities by W.A. Hoodless is published by The History Press priced £12.99 paperback.