STATELY Upton House at Poole has a rich history, having featured in everything from a Thomas Hardy novel to a Victorian scandal.

But few people today recall the days in the 1960s when it boasted a royal tenant.

In an article in the Dorset Year Book 2008, Poole's Brian J Galpin takes a look at the time when Prince Carol of Romania - who died in 2006 aged 86 - was the illustrious Upton House resident.

The article, entitled The High Profile Council House Tenant of Upton House, tells of how Poole council, which was given the property in 1957, leased Upton House to the prince from 1961.

Prince Carol, he explains, was the son of Crown Prince Carol - a relative of Queen Victoria - and Jeanne Marie Valentino Lambrino, who was known as Zizi.

They had married in 1918 in Odessa after Crown Prince Carol had deserted the Army and taken Zizi over the Russian border.

Despite family pressure forcing the marriage to be annulled, their son was born, legitimately, in Bucharest in 1919.

Mircea Grigore Carol Lambrino "had a most unroyal upbringing", points out Mr Galpin.

He was brought up by his mother, who resumed her career as a dancer in Paris. He assumed the title of Prince of Romania after his father's death in 1953.

In 1960, shortly before coming to Poole, Prince Carol married his second wife, Thelma Jeanne Williams ("Princess Jeanne") from Tennessee, USA.

"They came to Upton House and 'existed frugally'," writes Mr Galpin. "Prince Carol advertised for help, moved into the east wing as living space and was employed as a carpet salesman, using the house to display the products.

His wife gave birth to a son at Poole Maternity Hospital the following year.

Although all seemed well from the outside, a nurse employed to look after the baby discovered that the family was struggling to pay its way. Eventually the Prince was served with a notice to vacate. In the end, he surrendered the lease and, in 1969, the family moved out.

The article is one of many in The Dorset Year Book, which is now in its 99th year.

It is published by the Society of Dorset Men whose past presidents have included Thomas Hardy and Queen Victoria's surgeon, Sir Frederick Treves.

Among other contributed articles in the year book are features on subjects as varied as Bloxworth Village School, the "mystery" of servicemen's gravestones in Swanage and a fascinating look at Dorset Blue Vinny cheese.

The latter was written many years ago by the famous naturalist and journalist Kenneth Allsop, who lived at West Milton and presented 24 Hours on the BBC before his tragic death in 1973.

In those days Blue Vinny was hard to track down. Neither Fortnum's nor Harrods stocked it. There was somewhere at Sherton Abbas where you could still get it, he wrote.

"You see in what a ticklish day-to-day state of tension the Vinny addict lives," wrote Mr Allsop. "I eventually discovered a small dairy where the sublime cylinders fragrantly moulder.

"Even the serving girls don't know where they come from, only that they are delivered by someone from Ivell."

And he, added the author, was "merely the front man".