Then and Now...Again!.....
...time for a new page!.....




At a guess, I would date the photo as between 1903 and 1910. The trams lines are in place, so after 1903, but no sign at all of Coronation Ave, along the east side of Wimborne Rd
The building(s) behind the trees must be Burt's Farm. Work must have started soon after this time on Coronation Avenue, and the opening of the council school in 1911, following the Coronation of George V.
(Edit: although the Winton and Moordown Council School was indeed opend in 1911, the entrance was originally in Evelyn Rd. So the work on Coronation Ave may have started a little later. The entrance to the school moved to Coronation Ave in 1914..)
Building on the Mayfield Estate, and the Royal Avenues would have also started at around the same time...
The same location today.......
.....part of the Olympic Torch route, 100 years after the first photo !
This next one is quite well known, but a fascinating picture nevertheless. It shows Cave's Post Office on the corner of Malvern Rd. A bit difficult to date accurately (so far!). We know that the Tram Depot (now the Co-op) was opened in 1906, and we can see the tram lines in this photo, so it's probably after that date - unless the tram lines arrived some time before the terminus?
(I'm not quite sure why the tram lines extended beyond the tram terminus. They seem to just stop opposite Malvern Rd. It could be that it was originally intended to extend the tram lines further? Certainly there seem to be more tram line poles (without their cross pieces) down near the Hollies Hotel (now the Holly Tree)).
According to the 1901 census, the postmaster was called 'Batten' -- and many of you will remember Batten's Bakery in Malvern Rd, right up until the 1970's --- but by 1911 Alfred Cave is listed on the census return as the postmaster. I wonder if the chap in the postman's uniform was Mr. Cave himself?
A couple of extra views next, taken from the same location. The first from 1936, the second from 1937. Both the images are from the Bournemouth Library Heritage Collection. Thanks to Michael Stead for these.....
(click on the image to see them full size. Use your back button to come back here)
Note how the trolley bus is at the end of the line as it then was, and on the extreme edge of the picture you can see the extra wires leading off up Redhill Crescent. This was a 'reverser',special cabling to allow the buses to reverse up Redhill Crescent , and turn round...
Now in the next image below, taken in 1937....
Here's the same view today.......

Cave's Post Office building is now Alan Rice Funeral Directors, but apart from the yellow lines, and the trolley wires no longer there, much of the rest appears the same as it did in 1937....there are changes each side of Meadow Court, but they're not easy to see in this image...too much foliage!
This next pair of photos is perhaps cheating just a bit!.....it shows the view from Park Lane, behind the Horse and Jockey, looking towards Redhill village, and the River Stour. So, depending on where you define the boundaries of Moordown, it might be considered slightly out of our area!
Indeed, some of the first photo, taken before 1931, might not even be of Bournemouth, but rather of Poole! (The County Boundary ran down Redhill Avenue before that time). In any event, it's a charming photo..

Difficult to date. It is believed to be from a well known postcard, which is stamped with the head of George V, so before 1935. The horse and cart, and no motor traffic, suggests possibly an earlier date?
It is understood that a family called Franklin lived in the thatched cottage...(or at least in one of the cottages.. the building looks 'long' enough to be more than one cottage?) , and the metal 'awning' on the second cottage in the distance was over the front of a shop run by the Laney family. (Thanks to Russ Barnes for his research into discovering those details).
A modern photo from the same spot shows a very different view. The thatched cottages are gone, and the foliage hides the new roundabout. Laney's shop fronted cottage is gone, but the first cottage in the original photo (Ruddiford Cottage) is still there. You can just glimpse it, to the right of the Leylandii tree....

This lovely image of the Horse and Jockey was found by Jill Cutler. Date uncertain at the moment, but clearly not that recent. (You don't see many sheep outside these days!...)

Stange as it may seem, if the sheep were outside in the position they are in this photo, they probably still wouldn't actually be interfering with the traffic!
The pavement and forecourt are very wide there, as you can see from the photo below, taken today from the same point....

(P.S. .... no, I haven't added the new 'The Horse and Jockey' sign on the front of the building with 'Photoshop'... It really is fitted at an angle, across the corner of the wall!)
And from a little further east, along Castle Lane, a view of Lawford Rd taken in 1935. The bungalows along the north side are already there, but very little had been built on top of the ridge, along Hillcrest Rd.
Two years later, and there are signs of much development going on. The trolley bus route now descends Lawford Rd. The road corner between Lawford Rd and Castle Lane is now made up, and the houses are being built along Hillcrest Rd. (The one at the top of the hill is no. 25 'Tudor House', occupied by the Cresswell family).
There are a lot more properties along the 'ridge' these days, as this modern photo of the same location shows. 'Tudor House' is now virtually obscured by the trees.
This next one is of Tennyson Parade, on Wimborne Rd., and was taken in 1931. We can date it accurately, by comparing the names on the commercial premises with the Kelly's Directory entries for that year.
Ray Sheppard has sent me a copy of a photo of the bus depot, taken in the 1950s. To take a photo from the same spot today, you'd need to be standing right in the middle of the Moordown Medical Centre!....

It's all quite different there now of course...
There are several photos HERE (just click on the word 'HERE') that show some of the changes very well.
(Just use your back button to get back to this page)
(Thanks to Roderick Hogarth for that link)














