Bournemouth's sandy shoreline regularly clocks up seaside awards. It stretches from Southbourne in the far east to Alum Chine in the west – an immense promenade backed by some 3000 deckchairs, ornamental gardens, kids' playgrounds, cafes and 200 beach huts that are available for hire. The resort also has two piers. Around Bournemouth Pier you can rent deckchairs (per day £3), windbreaks (£6) and parasols (£6). Boscombe Pier is a focus for watersports.
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Lonely Planet's must-see attractions
24.38 MILES
England is endowed with countless stunning churches, but few can hold a candle to the grandeur and sheer spectacle of 13th-century Salisbury Cathedral…
9.64 MILES
The massive, shattered ruins of Corfe Castle loom so dramatically from the landscape it's like blundering into a film set. The defensive fragments tower…
18.84 MILES
Durdle Door is the poster child of Dorset's Jurassic Coast. This immense, sea-fringed, 150-million-year-old Portland stone arch was created by a…
24.34 MILES
Magna Carta on display in Salisbury Cathedral's Chapter House is one of only four surviving original copies. A historic agreement made in 1215 between…
9.53 MILES
Dorset's must-see stately home looks every inch the setting for a period drama. It overflows with rich decor, most famously in the Spanish Room, which is…
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25.05 MILES
Stately Wilton House provides an insight into the rarefied world of the British aristocracy. One of England's finest stately homes, it's been the house of…
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16.55 MILES
The tiny cottage that was home to TE Lawrence (1888–1935) provides a compelling insight into a complex man. The British soldier became legendary after…
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26.64 MILES
Lemon-frosted and Italianate, Osborne House is pure Victorian pomp. Built in the 1840s at the behest of Queen Victoria, the monarch grieved here for many…
Nearby attractions
0.2 MILES
Some 200 brightly painted beach huts are available for hire. They come equipped with three deckchairs and a gas stove.
0.22 MILES
Ostentation oozes from almost every inch of this arresting structure – a mash-up of Italianate villa and Scottish baronial pile. It was built at the end…
0.31 MILES
Built in 1908 to link Bournemouth's steep but relatively low cliffs to the beach, the West Cliff Lift Railway regularly trundles up and down a short…
0.43 MILES
First built in 1908, this historic railway is closed indefinitely – possibly permanently – following extensive damage in a landslide.
0.97 MILES
Bournemouth's 1920s heyday is beautifully evoked at a subtropical enclave containing plants from the Canary Islands, New Zealand, Mexico and the Himalayas…
3.18 MILES
A 2-mile, wafer-thin peninsula of land that curls around the expanse of Poole Harbour, Sandbanks is studded with some of the most expensive houses in the…
4.53 MILES
On this small, wooded island in the middle of Poole Harbour, trails weave through heath and woods, past peacocks, red squirrels, red deer and a wealth of…
5.02 MILES
The building alone is worth seeing – a beautifully restored 15th-century warehouse. The star exhibit is a 2300-year-old Iron Age logboat dredged up from…