Bournemouth is a seaside resort in Dorset on the south coast of England. It is located about 105 miles southwest of London, at . The town adjoins Poole in the west and Christchurch in the east, and overlooks Poole Bay. The Isle of Wight is visible from some vantage points.

It was part of the historic county of Hampshire. A roundabout at the end of the Wessex Way called "County Gates" marks the divide between the historic counties of Hampshire and Dorset, and also marks the border between Poole and Bournemouth. At the time of the 1974 re-organisation, it was moved into Dorset so that the whole of what is now called the South East Dorset conurbation would be in the same county. For local government purposes, it was part of the non-metropolitan county of Dorset from 1974 to 1997. On April 1, 1997, Bournemouth became an independent unitary authority, though it remains part of the ceremonial county of Dorset.

Bournemouth is a popular tourist destination on the South Coast of England because of the fine long (approximately 7 miles) beach that runs from Christchurch in the east to the border of Poole in the west, the wide range of accommodation and entertainment, the mild climate, and easy access to the New Forest, Jurassic Coast, Devon and the Dorset and Hampshire countryside. The stretch of beach belonging to Bournemouth does not run the length of Poole Bay (although Bournemouth and its council would very much like visitors to believe that it does), since it ends at the east at Hengistbury Head and at the long golden sand beaches of Poole in the west. This section of the English coast enjoys some of the warmest, driest and sunniest weather in Britain.

Rapid growth in Bournemouth has taken place (see History). In 1880, it had 17,000 people. The population was 60,000 by 1900 and had reached 150,000 by 1990. In the latest census, the town had a population of 163,441. Bournemouth is part of a built-up area known as the South East Dorset conurbation which includes Poole and Christchurch and has a combined population of 383,713, [1] the whole area being sufficiently populous to be one of the major retail and commercial centres in the south of England. Traditionally a retirement town, Bournemouth (mostly the Northbourne, Southbourne and Tuckton areas of Bournemouth together with Wallisdown, and Talbot Village areas of Poole), now houses many students who attend Bournemouth University (the administrative area and main campus of which is in fact located in Poole).

The Town

Bournemouth seen from Studland

The town is an important venue for major conferences and the Bournemouth International Centre (BIC), which stands on the cliff-tops near the middle of the town overlooking the sea and the pier, is the town's main venue for large conferences including in 2003 the Labour Party annual conference.

On 15 September 1980 Bournemouth was one of the first areas outside a major city to get its own independent radio station. 2CR FM broadcasts from near Bournemouth train station and its name is derived from the fact that its broadcast area includes parts of the counties of Dorset and Hampshire.

Bournemouth (and Poole, the town immediately to the West) have several chines (e.g. Branksome Chine, Alum Chine), valleys formed by the action of water, that lead down to the beaches and form a very attractive feature of the area. Bournemouth Central Gardens are a separate major park, leading for several miles down the valley of the River Bourne through the centre of the town to the sea (reaching the sea at the pier).

The Russell-Cotes Museum[2] is located just to the east of the Central Gardens near to the Pavilion and next to the Royal Bath hotel. The museum includes many fine mostly 19th century paintings and the family collections acquired when travelling e.g in Japan and Russia. It was Sir Merton Russell Cotes, one of Bournemouth's most prominent Victorians, who successfully campaigned to have a promenade built; the promenade now runs continuously along the Bournemouth and Poole shoreline.

The Royal Bath Hotel[3], located near the sea and just to the east of the Central Gardens, has attracted many important visitors over the years, including Oscar Wilde, H. G. Wells, Richard Harris, Sir Thomas Beecham, Shirley Bassey, and prime ministers Lord Beaconsfield (who stayed for three months to help his gout), Gladstone, Asquith and Lloyd George. Royal guests have been Edward VII and Edward VIII when each was the Prince of Wales, George VI when he was the Duke of York, Queen Wilhemina of the Netherlands and Empress Eugenie of France.

A new £9.5 million Bournemouth Library was completed in 2003, winning the Prime Minister's Better Public Building Award, in the British Construction Industry Awards competition in recognition of its relatively low cost and high fit with client requirements.

In recent years the town has attracted a high number of jobs in financial services, with JP Morgan Chase, Abbey Life and Portman Building Society all opening major offices. JP Morgan Chase has a large campus style office on the outskirts of the town in the Littledown area supplemented by further offices in the town centre, and employs over 4,000 people in the town. The financial sector is in fact the biggest source of income for Bournemouth, although a general misbelief is that the tourism sector is responsible for this.

The Town also plays host to a professional football club, AFC Bournemouth, currently playing in League One. They play at The Fitness First Stadium near Boscombe in Kings' Park, about two miles east of the Town Centre.

Talks into Bournemouth, Poole and Christchurch merging (to be called Wessex) are to begin between local government, as they periodically do. Such moves would make what is already one of the UK's most populous settlements a united area politically.

Shopping

The main shopping streets in the centre of town are just behind the seafront on either side of the small Bourne river; indeed footpaths lead down to the sea (from The Square) through the lower section of Bournemouth Central Gardens.

The shopping streets are mostly pedestrianised and lined with a wide range of boutiques, stores, jewellers and accessory shops. There are major stores (Debenhams, Beales, Marks and Spencer, Bhs, Dingles), modern shopping malls, Victorian arcades (including the elegant Victorian arcade between Westover Road and Old Christchurch Road), and a large selection of bars, clubs and cafés. About a mile to the west of the town centre, in the district of Westbourne, there is an impressive selection of designer clothes and interior design shops. About a mile to the east, in the district of Boscombe, there is another major shopping area including many antiques shops and a street market. North of the centre there is a new out-of-town shopping complex called Castlepoint[4] with supermarkets, DIY stores and larger versions of high street shops. Other supermarkets are located in town centre (ASDA and Tesco), Westbourne (Waitrose), Boscombe (Sainsburys) and between Westbourne and Upper Parkstone (Tesco).

History

Bournemouth Richmond Hill church

Bournemouth barely existed at the start of the 19th century. When retired army officer Lewis Tregonwell visited in 1810, he found only a bridge crossing a small stream at the head of an unspoilt valley (or 'chine') that led out into Poole Bay. An inn had recently been built at what is now The Square (centre of Bournemouth), catering both for travellers and for the smugglers who lurked in the area at night. Captain Tregonwell and his wife were so impressed by the area that they bought several acres and built a home, which is today part of the Royal Exeter Hotel. Tregonwell also planted pine trees, providing a sheltered walk to the beach. The town was to grow up around its scattered pines.

Bournemouth quickly became a destination for affluent holiday-makers and for invalids in search of the sea air. The site of Bournemouth had once been a hunting estate 'Stourfield Chase' but by the late 18th century only a small part of this was maintained: the 'Decoy Pond Estate' (now know as 'Coy Pond' and being wholly in the neighbouring historic town of Poole) comprising several fields around the Bourne Stream. In the 1840s the fields south of the road crossing (later The Square) were drained and laid out with shrubberies and walks. By the 1860s the fields to the north were also laid out with walks by the owners of the Branksome Estate. In the early 1870s all the fields were leased to the Bournemouth Commissioners, by the freeholders. These fields now form The Pleasure Gardens, which run through the centre of the town; although the former name of The Lower Pleasure Gardens is no longer officially applied to the area south of The Square. The immaculately tended gardens are still much-loved and the Central Gardens contain the town's impressive war memorial, guarded by two stone lions.

The War Memorial was installed in 1921, when the Borough Council moved to the Mont Dore Hotel adjacent, which it still occupies. Various building works were carried out - such as the Saint Stephen's Road bridge, to stamp the municipal identity on this area of the town, the war memorial was one of them. It was designed by Bournemouth's deputy architect Albert Edward Shervey, who copied the two lions, one sleeping, the other awake and roaring, from Antonio Cavona's lions which guarded the tomb of Pope Clement XIII.

A large sanatorium, overlooking the Central Gardens, treated patients with chest diseases. It has recently been re-developed as Brompton Court, a complex of retirement homes, preserving its remarkable chapel. Next to the sanatorium was built the magnificent Mont Dore Hotel, which is now the Town Hall. In the hotel's heyday in the 1880s it was renowned nationally and internationally for its sumptuous luxury which included possessing one of the first telephones in England - the number was "3". The hotel was then used during the war as a hospital to treat wounded soldiers.

Although the number of invalids sent to the town dropped in the late 19th century, the resort was still booming and its population increasing rapidly. As Bournemouth's popularity increased, the town centre spawned theatres, concert halls, cafés, cinemas and more hotels.

The town's first large entertainment venue was the original glass Winter Gardens, built in 1875 as the home of the town's municipal orchestra, (now the internationally renowned Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra). Elgar, Sibelius and Holst conducted there, but the acoustics were reputedly poor. In 1935, the original Winter Gardens was demolished. Its replacement, opened two years later, was intended as an indoor bowls centre, but by chance turned out to have superb acoustics, and after the Second World War it became the orchestra's new home. Before the opening of the BIC, the Winter Gardens welcomed just about every major entertainer of the day, including Maurice Chevalier, The Beatles, Pink Floyd and Morecambe and Wise. The building had been in decline since the late 1970s,and stood closed as the town council examined alternative uses. Then, despite a local vote and promises that it would be kept open, the hall was demolished in May 2006.[5]

The Pavilion dates from 1925 and was built on the site of the former Belle Vue boarding house, one of the town's first buildings. Theatrical legends, including Ralph Richardson and Trevor Howard, played the Pavilion Theatre in its heyday. The Pavilion faces the cinemas and upmarket shops of Westover Road, which prides itself on being the town's "Bond Street".

Westover Road's Odeon cinema began life as the Regent in 1929 and retains many of the art deco features of the era. It was known as the Gaumont from 1949-86 and used to host live performances as well as films. Stars who appeared there included Ella Fitzgerald, Dusty Springfield, Victor Borge and in 1963, the Beatles. The cinema now has six screens.

The nearby ABC cinema dates from 1937, when it contained one 2,600-seater auditorium. It has three auditoriums today, one of them boasting the areas largest cinema screen, and is the only cinema in the county capable of projecting epics in 70mm. Recent research has suggested that local residents, especially those of a younger demographic are keen to see a new live entertainment venue; easily accessible to the surrounding areas.

The Bournemouth Eye is located in the Lower Gardens a few yards from the Square. It is a tethered helium filled balloon in which the public can travel up to a height of five hundred feet, depending on the weather on any given day (in high winds it sometimes does not operate). There are good views to be obtained of the surrounding area, from the Isle of Wight round including the Purbeck Hills and Cranborne Chase.

History of Bournemouth Pier

Bournemouth pier

The first pier in Bournemouth consisted of a short wooden jetty that was completed in 1856. This was replaced by a much longer wooden pier, designed by George Rennie, which opened on September 17 1861. Due to an attack by Teredo worm the wooden piles were removed in favour of cast iron replacements in 1866, but even with this additional benefit just over a year later the pier was made unusable when the T-shaped landing stage was swept away in a gale. After repairs the pier continued in use for a further ten years until November 1876 when another severe storm caused further collapse rendering the pier too short for steamboat traffic. The Rennie pier was subsequently demolished, and replaced in 1877 by a temporary structure. During the next three years a new pier, designed by Eugenius Birch, was completed.

At a cost of £2,600 the new Bournemouth Pier was opened by the Lord Mayor of London on August 11 1880. Consisting of an open promenade, it stretched to a length of 838ft (255.4m) and spanned some 35ft (10.6m) across the neck of the pier, extending to 110ft (33.3m) at the head. With the addition of a bandstand In 1885, military band concerts took place three times a day in summer and twice daily throughout the winter. Covered shelters were also provided at this time. Two extensions, in 1894 and 1909 respectively, took the pier's overall length to more than 1000ft (304.8m).

In common with virtually all other piers in the south and east of the country, Bournemouth Pier was substantially demolished by an army demolition team in the spring of 1940 as a precaution against German invasion. The pier was repaired and re-opened in August 1946. Refurbishment of the pier head was carried out in 1950, and ten years later a rebuild of the substructure was completed in concrete to take the weight of a new pier theatre. A structural survey of 1976 found major areas of corrosion, and in 1979 a £1.7m restoration program was initiated. Having demolished the old shoreward end buildings, replacing them with a new two storey octagonal leisure complex, and reconstructed the pier neck in concrete giving it the bridge-like appearance that it retains today, the work was completed in two years.

Economy

This is a chart of trend of regional gross value added of Bournemouth and Poole at current basic prices published (pp.240-253) by Office for National Statistics with figures in millions of British Pounds Sterling.

	Agriculture	Industry	Services
1995	2,740	4	665	2,071
2000	4,142	2	890	3,250
2003	4,705	2	898	3,804

includes hunting and forestry

includes energy and construction

includes financial intermediation services indirectly measured

Components may not sum to totals due to rounding

Major businesses

Many well-known global businesses were started in the Bournemouth area and many have later chosen to relocate their headquarters to Bournemouth because of the relatively low prices in comparison with London.
* JP Morgan Chase has its European headquarters in Bournemouth and employs around 10,000 people
* Portman Building Society has its Head Office in Bournemouth
* UISL, part of Unisys, has its UK Head Office in Bournemouth
* Fitness First was started in Bournemouth and its headquarters are in the neighbouring town of Poole
* Barclays Bank has a major IT centre in Poole

The area

Bournemouth Town Hall

Bournemouth is located directly to the east of the "Jurassic Coast", a 95 mile section of beautiful and largely unspoilt coastline recently designated a World Heritage Site. Apart from the beauty of much of the coastline, the Jurassic Coast provides a complete geological record of the Jurassic period and a rich fossil record.

The section of the coast both to the east and to the west of Bournemouth was very important during World War 2. For example Poole (Poole Harbour) was the departure point for many ships participating in the D-Day landings, and Studland Bay (just west of Poole) was the scene of practice live fire beach landings in preparation for the Normandy Landings. Bournemouth itself was not a main target of bombing during WW2 but was on the route for other raids (e.g. on Coventry) and German bombers were known to unload their spare bombs on the town; 219 local people were killed by bombing during the war.

Just east of Bournemouth is the New Forest, designated a National Park in 2005. These popular tourist sites, as well as the Dorset countryside and the beach, have helped keep Bournemouth's tourism based economy alive through the second half of the 20th century when tourism in seaside towns generally declined.

Bournemouth is in Hardy country, and appears as Sandbourne in Thomas Hardy's novels. Tess lived in Sandbourne with Alec d'Urberville, and the town also features in The Well-Beloved and Jude the Obscure.

Bournemouth is a unitary authority area, and is included within the lieutenancy area of Dorset. Traditionally in Hampshire, Bournemouth was briefly annexed to Dorset by the Local Government Act 1972, before becoming a unitary authority in 1997.

Bournemouth, once referred to as "God's Waiting Room", has in recent years become a much younger, vibrant place. It has a large student population (including many exchange students) and many young people are drawn there by its extensive nightlife, including clubs opening 24 hours all day everyday. The town has many nightclubs and pubs, most of which have taken advantage of the recent change in licensing laws to stay open after the traditional pub closing time. The gay scene is mostly concentrated in the Triangle area, where several gay-friendly pubs (such as the Branksome[6] and XChange) and clubs (Dream Nightclub[7]) are opened throughout the week.

Bournemouth was the first local authority in the UK to install CCTV cameras in public places, introducing them on the seafront in 1985.

Transport

The area of Poole, Bournemouth and Christchurch shows increasing congestion and some roads are very busy all day.

There is no motorway within the county of Dorset, although there is dual carriageway from Bournemouth Town Centre to the A31 dual carriageway leading to the M27 and London. Fast access may also be gained to the M4 north of Newbury, Berkshire.

National Express coaches serves Bournemouth Travel Interchange, Boscombe and Westbourne. There are frequent departures to London Victoria Coach Station. There are direct services to the West Country, Sussex coast (Brighton and Eastbourne), Bristol, Birmingham and the Midlands, the North West, and to Edinburgh and Glasgow. Flightlink serves Heathrow Airport with connections to Gatwick and Stansted Airports.

Local buses are provided by two rival companies, Wilts and Dorset and Transdev Yellow Buses. During the early summer of 2006 both of these underwent major changes of route and numbering, and visitors to the town are advised to check that they are on the correct bus when boarding.

Bournemouth is well served by the rail network with two stations in the town, Bournemouth railway station and Pokesdown railway station to the East. Parts of western Bournemouth can also be reached from Branksome station. Unfortunately, Bournemouth station is located some way from the town centre, due to the town's founding fathers not wishing to have a station within the town boundary, which extended 1 mile from the pier. The station was originally ¨Bournemouth East¨ with a second station serving the west of the town in Queens Road. (Poole station is by contrast near to Poole town centre). South West Trains operates a comprehensive service to London Waterloo with a journey time of as little as 1 hour 40 minutes. This line also serves Southampton, Winchester and Basingstoke to the East, and Poole, Wareham, Dorchester and Weymouth to the West. Virgin Trains serve destinations to the North with direct trains to Reading, Oxford, Birmingham and the Midlands, Manchester and the Northwest, Yorkshire, Newcastle, and Edinburgh and Glasgow. South Central Trains 'West-Coastway' services are available by changing at Southampton Central. The Sussex Coastal towns of Chicheser, Worthing, Hove and Brighton are served and trains continue to Gatwick Airport and London Victoria.

Bournemouth International Airport is a short journey from the Town Centre - enabling passengers and freight to be flown directly to destinations in the UK and abroad. Taxis going to Bournemouth are available at the taxi stand on the airport and will bring you to town centre in approximately 10-15 minutes. A typical ride will cost anywhere between £10 and £15 pounds. Heathrow and Gatwick are accessible by car or coach. Ryanair operates scheduled flights to Glasgow (Prestwick), Dublin, Barcelona (Girona) and Pisa (Florence). In March 2005 The airport saw its second big budget airline setup base Thomsonfly.com which offers flights to Alicante, Amsterdam, Faro, Lanzarote, Lyon, Malaga, Palma Mallorca, Paris, Salzberg and Tenerife. Since 1993 Palmair have held their base at Bournemouth Airport as a charter airline offering charter flights to destinations on behalf of Bath Travel.

The airport found fame in February 2006 when explorer Steve Fossett landed here following his successful attempt to fly around the world in his plane "Virgin Atlantic Global Flyer".

Bournemouth does not have its own harbour, but there are extensive ferry services to the Channel Islands and France (available from the Port of Poole). During summer, fast cat services operate to Cherbourg, Guernsey and Jersey, making it possible to enjoy the "booze cruise" that is more typically associated with the Kentish ports of Dover and Folkestone.

Schools in Bournemouth

Avonbourne School [8]

Bethany Church of England Junior School

Bournemouth School [9]

Bournemouth School for Girls [10]

Christ the King Catholic Primary School

Corpus Christi Catholic Primary School

Elmrise Primary School

Glenmoor School [11]

Heathlands Primary School

Hill View Primary School

Highcliffe Comprehensive School [www.highcliffe.dorset.sch.uk]

Kings High School

King's Park School

Kingsleigh Primary School

Kinson Primary School

Linwood School

Malmesbury Park Primary School

Moordown St. John's Church of England Primary School

Muscliff Primary School

Oakmead College of Technology [12]

Pokesdown Community Primary School

Portchester School [13]

Queen's Park Infant School

Queen's Park Junior School

St. Clement's and St. John's Church of England Infant School

St. James' Church of England Primary School

St. Katharine's Church of England Primary School

St. Luke's Church of England Primary School

St. Mark's Church of England Aided Primary School

St. Michael's Church of England Primary School

St. Peter's Catholic Comprehensive School

St. Walburga's Catholic Primary School

Stourfield Infant School

Stourfield Junior School

Talbot Heath

The Bicknell School

The Bishop of Winchester Comprehensive School

The Epiphany Church of England Primary School

Townsend Primary and Nursery School

Winton Boys School [14]

Winton Primary School [15]

Wildlife

The Bournemouth area has long been a place wherein many unusual species of animals and plants can be found. Brownsea island, in nearby Poole Harbour, is one of the few places in the south where the red squirrel still remains, and the ant Formica pratensis had its last stronghold in the area, although it is now thought to be extinct on the mainland. Although described by Farren White as "the common wood ant of Bournemouth" in the mid-19th century, the noted entomologist Horace Donisthorpe found only one colony of true pratensis out of hundreds of F. rufa nests there in 1906. In recent times the last known two colonies disappeared in the 1980s, making this ant the only ant species thought to have become extinct in Great Britain. It does, however, still survive on cliff-top locations in the Channel Islands. The rare narrow-headed ant also used to exist in Bournemouth, although it has died out in the area.

Trivia

The word 'Bournemouth' is often used (erroneously) to describe the conurbation of Bournemouth, Poole and Christchurch. As a result, the following misnomers have come to exist:
*"Bournemouth University" is actually mainly in Poole.
*"Bournemouth International Airport" is actually in Christchurch. The nearby village of Hurn resulted in its previous name of Hurn Airport.
*"Bournemouth Bay" does not actually exist, but is a common misnomer for Poole Bay.

External links

* Official Bournemouth Borough Council information site
* Official Bournemouth International Centre site
* Official Bournemouth tourist information site
* Russell-Cotes Museum
* United Kingdom Census 2001 statistics for Bournemouth
* Bournemouth Transport Plan site discussing transport issues and problems
* Map of Bournemouth, showing Dorset county boundary
* Bournemouth University
* The Arts Institute at Bournemouth
* Town Watch initiative Bournemouth
* The Jurassic Coast World Heritage site
* Geology of the Dorset Coast website
* A guide to the large gay community in Bournemouth
* Practical Guide to Live and Study in Bournemouth
* An informative night guide for Bournemouth
* Bournemouth Daily Echo
* A useful guide to Takeaways in Bournemouth
* Bournemouth Annual Pride Festival
* Frenzy hard house nightclub in Bournemouth
* See Bournemouth - a Google Map based interactive guide to the Bournemouth area

Bournemouth: Encyclopedia BETA

Contents

Bournemouth