Guide turistiche

Bournemouth is a large town and tourist resort, situated on the south coast of England. With a population of 164,000 it is the largest settlement in the ceremonial county of Dorset, though in the historic county of Hampshire. The town is a regional centre of education and business, and forms the main part of the South East Dorset conurbation, with the adjoining town of Poole. It is also the largest town on the English south coast between Southampton and Plymouth. The town is most notable as the home of the Bournemouth International Centre. The town is also home to several financial companies including JPMorgan Chase, Nationwide Building Society, Liverpool Victoria and Standard Life.

It is often misconceived that the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, The Arts Institute at Bournemouth as well as Bournemouth University have their home in Bournemouth. This is not the case despite the name. These are all actually located in POOLE. Bournemouth University and The Arts Institute at Bournemouth are both located in the same place just on the border of Poole and Bournemouth on the Poole side. Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra currently have their home behind the The Lighthouse (Poole) in Poole Town Centre.

In a recent survey by First Direct Bank, Bournemouth was found to be the happiest place in Britain with 82% of people questioned saying they were happy with their life.


History


The area surrounding Bournemouth has been the site of human settlement for thousands of years. In 1800 the area was largely a remote and barren heathland. No-one lived at Bourne Mouth and the only regular visitors were a few fishermen, turf cutters and gangs of smugglers who landed their cargoes of spirits, tea and tobacco on the deserted beach.

The area had once been a hunting estate, 'Stourfield Chase', but by the late 18th century only a few small parts of it were maintained, including several fields around the Bourne Stream and a cottage known as Decoy Pond House, which stood near where The Square is today.

Generally, until 1802 the area was common land. The Christchurch Inclosures Act 1802 and the Inclosure Commissioners' Award of 1805 transferred hundreds of acres into private ownership for the first time.

In 1809, the Tapps Arms public house appeared on the heath. In 1812 the first residents, retired army officer Lewis Tregonwell and his wife, moved into their new home, built on land he had purchased from Sir George Ivison Tapps.

First Tregonwell and later Tapps began developing the settlement for holiday letting. They planted pine trees, providing a sheltered walk to the beach. The town would ultimately grow up around its scattered pines. Twenty-five years after the Tregonwells started work on their holiday mansion, Bournemouth was still a small community with a scattering of houses and cottages.

In 1835, after the death of Sir George Ivison Tapps, his son Sir George William Tapps-Gervis inherited his father's estate and started developing the seaside village into a resort similar to those that had already grown up along the south coast such as Weymouth and Brighton.

In 1841, there were still only a few hundred people living in Bournemouth, but that year saw the town visited by the physician Augustus Bozzi Granville. Granvilla was the author of The Spas of England, which described health resorts around the country. As a result of his visit, Dr Granville included a chapter on Bournemouth in the second edition of his book. It was this more than anything that put the town on the map as the perfect place for people with health problems, especially chest complaints, which were common in the 19th century. Bournemouth quickly became a destination for affluent holiday-makers and for invalids in search of 'the sea air'. In the 1840s the fields south of the road crossing (later The Square) were drained and laid out with shrubberies and walks.

In 1856, Parliament approved the Bournemouth Improvement Act. Under the Act, a board of 13 Commissioners was established to organise all the things involved in the running of a small but growing town, such as paving, sewers, drainage, street lighting and street cleaning.

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. The area continued to develop along with the railways and the popular idea of visiting the seaside for holidays. Among the people who contributed to the development of Bournemouth at this time were Sir Percy Florence Shelley (son of Percy Bysshe Shelley and Mary Shelley) and Sir Merton Russell-Cotes.

In 1880, the town had a population of 17,000 people. By 1900 this had risen to 60,000, and by 1990 it had more than doubled again, reaching 150,000. In the latest census, the town had a population of 163,441. Since the 1990s there have been increasing calls for the town, together with Poole, to attain official city status (as per the example of Brighton & Hove) due to its sheer expanse and regional importance.