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Visiting Bournemouth? Latest availability Bournemouth Hotels with last minute and late room booking discounts here. Village Hotel & Leisure Club Bournemouth | Brooklands Hotel | The Maemar Hotel | Bridge House Hotel | Best Western Anglo Swiss Hotel | Hinton Firs Hotel | The Suncliff Hotel | Britannia Bournemouth Hotel | Kiwi Hotel | The Riviera Hotel & Holiday Apartments | De Vere Royal Bath | Elstead Classic Hotel | Best Western Connaught Hotel | Heathlands Hotel | Ramada Encore | The Lodge at Meyrick Park | Langtry Manor | Menzies Carlton Hotel & Leisure Club | Studland Dene Hotel | Montague Hotel | The Inver House Hotel | Norfolk Royale Classic Hotel | Avon Causeway Hotel | Menzies East Cliff Court | The Whitehall Hotel | Captains Club Hotel and Spa | Mayfair Hotel | Britannia Roundhouse Hotel | Hermitage Hotel | Urban Beach Hotel | Boscombe Reef Hotel | The Gresham Court Hotel | Woodcroft Tower Hotel | Yenton Hotel | Dean Park Inn | The Chine Hotel | Tiffanys hotel | Glendevon Hotel | The Grove Hotel | Ashleigh Hotel | Carrington House Hotel | Chelsea Hotel | East Cliff Cottage Hotel | Fielden Court Hotel | The Cliffeside Hotel | The Lodge | Tudor Grange Hotel Guide to Bournemouth MAP OF BOURNEMOUTH HOTELS with last minute room booking discounts, CLICK HERE FOR MAP. Local Business listings in the Bournemouth Directory by Wilkopedia. Bournemouth was originally part of Hampshire but was ceded to Dorset in a 1974 local government reform. Evidence of this can be found at a roundabout at the end of the Wessex Way called "County gates" where the gate marking the divide between Hampshire and Dorset once stood, and which now marks the border between Poole and Bournemouth. On April 1, 1997 Bournemouth became an independent unitary authority. Map of Bournemouth, Dorset, England - choose a location to start your tour:
Bournemouth is one of the most popular tourist destinations on the English south coast, because of its fine long beach, 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. This section of the English coast enjoys some of the warmest, driest, and sunniest weather in Britain. Bournemouth, Dorset - Latest 5 day, 10 day, 15 day weather, outlook and forecast. Rapid growth in Bournemouth has taken place (see History). In 1880, it had 17,000 people, 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 conurbation with, to the west, Poole (population 138,385 in 2001) and to the east Christchurch (population 44,865), 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 now houses many students who attend Bournemouth University, which is noted for its Media School, and the Arts Institute. Bournemouth speed
dating 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. 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 Royal Bath Hotel, 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 Disraeli (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 Sweden 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. 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. 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. 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, cafes, cinemas and more hotels. 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". 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. 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 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 £21,600 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 -L-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. 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 Harbour was the departure point for many ships participating in the D-Day landings, and Studland Bay (just west of Bournemouth) 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 beaches, have helped keep Bournemouth's tourism based economy alive through the second half of the 20th century when tourism in seaside towns declined. The conurbation of Poole, Bournemouth, Christchurch shows increasing congestion and some roads are very busy all day. 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. Heathrow and Gatwick are accessible by car or coach. Ryanair operates scheduled flights to Glasgow (Prestwick), Dublin, Barcelona (Girona) and Frankfurt (Hahn). 2005 saw the advent of new operators basing themselves at the airport offering an even wider range of European destinations. 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. The Bournemouth area has long been a place wherein many unusual species of animals and plants can be found. Nearby Brownsea island 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. |
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 Location photography by Rohan Perera, graphics, programming and more Tony Quinn © Red Door VR Limited |
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