Bournemouth .With seven miles of golden sands and sparkling sea, the vibrant cosmopolitan town of Bournemouth has it all - a vast variety of shops, restaurants and holiday accommodation, buzzing nightlife and endless countryside with beautiful award winning gardens and water sports galore. Bournemouth is a large coastal resort town in the ceremonial county of Dorset, England. According to the mid-year estimates for 2010 from the Office for National Statistics the town has a population of 168,100, making it the largest settlement in Dorset. It is also the largest settlement between Southampton and Plymouth. With Poole and Christchurch, Bournemouth forms the South East Dorset conurbation, which has a total population of about 400,000. Founded in 1810 by Lewis Tregonwell, Bournemouth's growth accelerated with the arrival of the railway, becoming a recognised town in 1870. Historically part of Hampshire, it joined Dorset with the reorganisation of local government in 1974. Since 1997 the town has been administered by a unitary authority, meaning that it has autonomy from Dorset County Council. The local authority is Bournemouth Borough Council. Bournemouth's location on the south coast of England has made it a popular destination for tourists. The town is a regional centre of business, home of the Bournemouth International Centre and financial companies that include Liverpool Victoria and PruHealth. Although Bournemouth is on the coast, the centre of the town lies inland - the commercial and civil heart of the town being the Square. From the Square the Upper and Lower Pleasure Gardens descend to the seafront and the pier. Areas within Bournemouth include Bear Cross, Boscombe, Kinson, Pokesdown, Westbourne and Winton. Traditionally a large retirement town, Bournemouth (mostly the Northbourne, Southbourne and Tuckton areas of Bournemouth together with the Wallisdown, and Talbot Village areas of Poole) has seen massive growth in recent years, especially through the growth of students attending Bournemouth University and the large number of language schools teaching English as a foreign language. Bournemouth is located directly to the east of the Jurassic Coast, a 95-mile ( 153 km ) section of beautiful and largely un spoilt 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. Bournemouth sea front overlooks Poole Bay and the Isle of Wight. Bournemouth also has seven miles ( 11 km ) of sandy beaches that run from Hengistbury Head in the east to Sandbanks, in Poole, in the west. Because of the coastal processes that operate in Poole Bay, the area is often used for surfing. An artificial reef was expected to be installed at Boscombe, in Bournemouth, by October 2008, using large sand-filled geotextile bags. However, this deadline was not met, and the construction was actually finished at the end of October 2009. The Boscombe Reef was constructed as part of the larger Boscombe Spa Village development. Bournemouth also has several chines ( e.g., Alum Chine ) that lead down to the beaches and form a very attractive feature of the area. The Dorset and Hampshire region surrounding Bournemouth has been the site of human settlement for thousands of years. However, in 1800 the Bournemouth area was largely a remote and barren heathland. No one lived at the mouth of the Bourne River and the only regular visitors were a few fishermen, turf cutters and gangs of smugglers until the 16th century. During the Tudor period the area was used as 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. With the exception of the estate, until 1802 most of the Bournemouth 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. A few years later, 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. Tregonwell began developing his land for holiday letting by building a series of sea villas. In association with Tapps, he planted hundreds of pine trees, providing a sheltered walk to the beach ( later to become known as the ~ Invalids walk ). The town would ultimately grow up around its scattered pines. In 1832 when Tregonwell died, Bournemouth had grown into small community with a scattering of houses, villas and cottages.

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