‘Bournemouth has no history’.

The statement about our lack of a historical narrative was already old 50 years ago, when it was used to open David Young’s book, ‘The Story of Bournemouth’. And there are good reasons for taking the statement seriously.

Bournemouth forms part of a conurbation, comprising, to the west, Poole which was first awarded a charter in 1248, and to the east Christchurch whose Priory was begun in 1094. Bournemouth, in the middle, dating from 1810, was very much the infant of the trio. It had no long-established families and so for many years most of the residents were acutely aware of the town’s shallow roots in the soil of the past.

Beyond the youth of its fabric, Bournemouth’s very appeal was as a place where nothing happened. When Eleanor Bowes (1749-1800), 4th great grandmother to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, wanted to flee the murderous intentions of her second husband, she came here. When the Tregonwells had lost their son to an early death and wanted to mourn in solitude, they came here. When the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII) wanted to set up a secret love nest with a mistress, he had a house built in Bournemouth.

Famous visitors

Even when things did happen in Bournemouth, people pretended that they hadn’t. Robert Louis Stevenson wrote Jekyll and Hyde here, but set it in Scotland. Tony Hancock grew up here, but liked to give the impression that he came from Birmingham. Lady Jane Shelley redefined the reputation of her father-in-law Percy Bysshe Shelley here (turning him from a scandal-ridden hedonist, to a revered Romantic Poet) but gave the impression that his reputation had always been irreproachable. When the D-Day landings were planned in Bournemouth Bay, the exercise was carried out under the utmost secrecy.

Despite all this, there is a story to be told about the growth of the town and about its buildings and residents. There is also a pre-history to be told about the ancient landscape upon which Bournemouth has been built.