History of Bournemouth - The Pleasure Gardens and The Sanatorium

The Pleasure Gardens and The Sanatorium

The Pleasure Gardens are still an important landmark and the Central Gardens contain the town's impressive war memorial, guarded by two stone lions. The War Memorial was installed in 1921 when the Borough Council moved to the adjacent Mont Dore Hotel, which it still occupies. Various building works were carried out - such as the Saint Stephen's Road bridge - to stamp the municipal identity on this area of the town; the war memorial was one of them. It was designed by Bournemouth's deputy architect Albert Edward Shervey, who copied the two lions (one sleeping, the other awake and roaring) from Antonio Cavona's lions which guarded the tomb of Pope Clement XIII.

A large sanatorium, overlooking the Central Gardens, treated patients with chest diseases. It has recently been re-developed as Brompton Court, a complex of retirement homes, preserving its remarkable chapel. Next to the sanatorium was built the magnificent Mont Dore Hotel, which is now the Town Hall. In the hotel's heyday in the 1880s it was renowned nationally and internationally for its sumptuous luxury which included possessing one of the first telephones in England - the number was "3". The hotel was then used during the First World War as a hospital to treat wounded soldiers. Although the number of invalids sent to the town dropped in the late 19th century, the resort was still booming and its population increasing rapidly. As Bournemouth's popularity increased, the town centre spawned theatres, concert halls, cafés, cinemas and more hotels.