A view of the ornate staircase within the town hall
The site had once formed part of a large wooded area known as "Bruce's Wood" named after the early 19th century owner of the land, Patrick Craufurd Bruce MP, who also planted vast forests in Berkshire, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and Hampshire.[2][3] It was acquired by a solicitor, George Durrant, who renamed it the Branksome Estate, in the 1850s.[4] Durrant started selling parts of the estate and the site was initially used for a boarding use known as The Glen.[5] The site was then acquired by Dr Alfred Meadow who had ambitions to establish a spa hotel offering treatment for tuberculosis, bronchitis, asthma and nervous and rheumaticparalysis on a similar basis to the treatment used at the thermal spring at Mont-Dore in France.[6]
The foundation stone for the new building was laid by King Oscar II of Sweden and Norway, whose consort Queen Sophia had developed an interest in the treatment, on 26 May 1881.[5] It was designed by Alfred Bedborough in the French, Italianate and Neoclassical styles and opened as the Mont Dore Hotel in 1885.[7][8] The design involved a long, curved main frontage of 25 bays facing the corner of Bourne Avenue and Braidley Road; the entrance section, which slightly projected forward, featured a portico with a broken segmental pediment containing an oculus; there was a balcony with a triple sash window on the first floor, triple sash windows on the second and third floors and a pediment above; there was a belvedere with turrets and a pavilion roof above that.[1]
The building became a convalescent home for officers later in 1917 and was then acquired by Bournemouth Borough Council in 1919 and, after it had been converted into a town hall, it was re-opened by the mayor, Councillor Charles Henry Cartwright, in 1921.[1] An additional wing containing a dedicated council chamber, which projected forward and featured a bowed front, was built to the left of the main building in 1930.[1]Queen Elizabeth II, accompanied by the Duke of Edinburgh, visited the town hall in July 1966.[9][10] In the 1980s a bunker was constructed under the building to protect civic leaders in the event of a nuclear attack.[5]
The town hall continued to serve as the headquarters of Bournemouth Borough Council and then continued to operate as the local seat of government after the formation of the new unitary authority, Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council, on 1 April 2019.[11][12][13] The new council renamed the building the "BCP Council Civic Centre".[14]
^Ashley, Harry W.; Ashley, Hugh (1990). Bournemouth 1890–1990 (a brief history of Bournemouth over the last 100 years). Bournemouth: Bournemouth Borough Council. p. 43.
^Edwards, Elizabeth (1981). A History of Bournemouth. Chichester: Phillimore & Co. pp. 42–43. ISBN0-85033-412-8.