The Knowhere Guide

Best and Worst in Bournemouth, Dorset*

Bournemouth, Dorset Triumphs and Tragedies

Favourite Building

• Ahhhh PORTMAN!
• Lansdowne clock tower, branded an eyesore when it opened on May 25 1919, but little did they know that 80-odd years later it would be about the most pleasant building left among a cornucopia of drab, grey, angular concrete edifices.
• Odeon cinema
• The Pavilion
• K-HOUSE TERRACE RD bournemouth.
• The arcade in Westbourne with it's cracked and pot-holed tiled floor, the Royal Bath coz way back when I worked there as a hall porter and what used to be the Gaumont Cinema -now the Odeon. I saw Star Wars there as a 7 yr old - happy memories!
• The new portland building is going to create a sick spot.
• Abbey Life Building, or whatever it's called these days!
• THE PAVILION, A LOVELY SLICE OF 1929 COMPLETE WITH MIGHTY COMPTON THEATRE ORGAN IN THE CONCERT HALL WITH FREE CONCERTS THROUGHOUT THE SUMMER
• Cranborne House - the 1st year student halls - its had its roof blown off, its got dodgy heaters and the cleaners fine people too much but its the BEST place to live!
• Dean Court - the only place to be seen on a Saturday afternoon
• THE GANDER

Demolish It Now Building

• The college!!
• The new but as yet unopened IMAX cinema.A travesty on the seafront.
• IMAX, RUINED a lovely view of the sea, its a disgrace, I'm never buying a ticket to that place.
• IMAX CINEMA
• Everdene House
• the showbar
• EVERY MASONIC HALL IN THE WORLD.
• The Dalkieth Arcade has to go! (sorry Consortium)
• Without any doubt the imax should be flattened
• The Railway Station
• Dean Court - crumbling terraces reflects the attittude of the owners of the club.
• All of the town apart from the G&T
• Bournemouth University!
• The cage nightclub
• The B.I.C.

The Best Things

• The best thing about Bournemouth is obviously the sea. But throw that in with the brilliant weather down here and our new cannibis café (Dutch Experience 2) where else would you want to go for the summer?
• The beach in the summer!!!All those summer nites spend drinkin under the stars!!
• The beach,sea and babes.
• The beach, the sun
• Hot surfer guys,pubs and clubs,bongo bongo and standout,the gardens in the summer,the beach,shakeaways,obscura,the flamey thing,the metal section of HMV is quite vast,the T chest,borders...
• clubs-chocolate-vinyl-girls-sports-djing-k-bar-money-chill out -ellusive records- sunshine-holidays-white labels-french house
• Being in a place where you could always feel at home. A wonderful bay stretching on forever and a beach like no other in the world. Surfing with your mates, getting drunk at weekends and lying out at night, looking for satellites and shooting stars. Good days.
• The Beach, the best mates in the whole world, walking along the prom from the pier to the Chines and the view from the top of the West Cliff to the pier.
• the beach- i kno itz pretty sad- but... thatz it really
• Bournemouths really cool in the summer especially along the back wall of Sandbanks when the sun is in tanning mode!
• Charminster Road! Helvetia Bar, closes at 2 am weekends. Really cheap delis... really cheap everything come to think of. It's completely different from the rest of the town. Worth a visit.
• It's my home town, I slagged it off when I lived there, but I moved away 2 years ago, and I miss it terribly. Believe me Reading just ain't home!
• Climate and easy going atmosphere.
• Riding the #5 bus from Columbia Rd to the Square - every time i visit from the USA i ride this bus -- its like an old friend when i come to visit
• Hazy summer nights in Bar Med or on the beach under the stars!
• Strong student element gives the town a younger feel than most citys even out of season.
• 23 goal Mark Stein.
• AFC BOUNEMOUTH FOOTBALL CLUB!!!! - mid table tut tut...those were the days, This year promotion, tomorow the WORLD!!!
• The Noddy Train - it's bonkers!!
• The uni is a very cool place, very friendly and cosmopolitan. Legends cafe/bar is just THE BEST place ever! It does over 40 types of milkshakes - inc Dimebar, crunchie, terrys choc orange, turkish delight.....but it has the best atmosphere - so laid back it's unbelievable, gay friendly, and they have these 2 'residents' who must be about 100 years old who sit in it every day and sleep.......I LOVE IT HERE!
• Great beach Skaters friendly Not too much skate harassment, if you are sensible Clean streets some fine looking ladies
• Loads of yummy men. specially in the summer. ALthough Bournemouth seems to have loads of mad people.
• Good for the sick and dying - lots of alternative health and medicine. Safe, clean and quiet. Conversely hedonistic students (University and foreign) will have a ball. Gay and lesbian scene centred between the Square and the Triangle - pubs, clubs, cafes.
• The friendly people! I felt so welcomed during my language course. People come to talk to you, they don´t care if your grammar isn´t just right and they´re just so magnificent! And then of course: we! Like me, many students come to Bournemouth every summer, and I think it´s a good thing. The more the merrier, right? And girls: We do NOT come there to steal your boyfriends!
• The football, the beach, night time at the right time, my mun and dad. Going back for the odd weekend.
• A walk on the deserted beach in winter.
• Walking from Bournemouth to Hengistebury Head with a French girl, drinking pints of beer at night in a pub... feeling like I was in another world!
• Hand feeding the squirrels in the lower gardens with monkey nuts.
• I now live in Washington Dc but i grew up in Bournemouth and my heart still lies there. Best thing: AFC Bournemouth - if they manage to survive and the foreign students who make the town so cosmopolitan. Worst thing: The run down nature of the center of town - not like when I grew up. (or maybe it is just nostalgia.) Best quote: "Even the grass is blue" Former Labor Party General Secretary on Labor prospects of winning 1977 Bournemouth East by election.
• Having been to Bournemouth just two or three times, I would like to say that is the the nicest place I have ever been to. I haven't seen the BIC but if it is anything like the NIA or the NEC then I'm sure it is quite good. I love the way you can walk from the town centre to the beach WITHOUT having to cross the road (if you go through that mini-park). It is supposed to be one of the safest places in the country and I would really like to go back there one day. I would certainly recommend a visit to Bournemouth because the place is really good.
• Well what can I say except the women are the best you'll find in Britain. The college is great, the clubs are the best, the beach is blinding (in summer), great atmosphere and did I mention the women, well they are the Best by far, I LOVE THIS TOWN.
• We had a wonderful weekend in Bournemouth. Stayed at the Stakis Hotel, had a gorgeous Chinese meal at the Oriental Views in Old Christchurch Road on the Friday evening and a marvelous Italian one in Gino's on Saturday. Most impressed with the beach, very clean and tidy and the walks along the front were great.
• Cleanliness - Pleasant environment in the town, the place is unlike most other large towns / cities, and it has won the Europe in Bloom award this year. Not particularly exiting, but it makes the town a lot nicer place to live.
• Definitely, the people.
• AFC Bournemouth - Second division football at its most mid-table. Still a chance to get away from all the pretentious wankers in Madisons, and be with a load of grown men making twats out of themselves on a terrace.
• Westover Road snooker club - 24hr of glorious baize. Members only but you can sign in for a quid. Hot food as well.
• Night Life, especially Saturday nights. We usually start in the Moon, go on to Pumphreys, then Woodies. At about 11, we pile into a club, whichever looks like it'll be good that night / cheapest.
• The sea! The women esp. in summer, The Sun.
• All the foreign women in the summer.
• Number of hotels/ sandy beaches/ countryside.

The Worst Things

• All the gangs who go around in there tracksuits tryin to look hard in their massive groups!!!We know who u are!!And 1 day we'll catch alone!!
• The tourist season.Holidaymakers.
• Bournemouth is plagued with townies.. the white lightning dirinkers are everywhere.. be warned if your a skateboarder or a goth..
• Bournemouth folk are either friendly old folk, or pompous twats with thier heads up their own arses. Oh and students.
• Nasty entity in Bournemouth called 'The Toope'. Best avoided at all times unless you are a big fan of dirty holes.
• Yes, a lot of you girls out there in Bournemouth are very attractive, but please ladies, don't let it go to your heads. I'm not stereotyping all attractive women, because that wouldn't be fair, and I know a lot of friendly, sexy girls in Bournemouth. But those of you who are a bit "off" (you know who you are)don't you think it would be nice to let up on the attitude a bit? You'd look so much prettier with a smile on your face!
• Kackers,old people,trendy bitches that think they're amazing,bad pop bands at the BIC,mini golf in the gardens,beach huts,not being able to find your bus at b'mouth square,getting run-over by your bus at b'mouth sqaure...
• Being away too long.
• Too many gangs of grunting, insecure oaths in track- suit bottoms, trainers and designer labels who shout abusive, moronic comments at anyone who opts to dress differently. As a ‘non-conformer’, I often have to put up with this cretinous (and sometimes physically threatening behaviour) when I’m out and about minding my own business. This kind of thing has got worse since Bournemouth became totally and brutally trendified.
• I have lived in Boscombe for two years and although its true the area does have problems with hard drugs, prostitution etc, it has been cleaned up quite a bit recently. It has noticably improved in the time I have been here. Street CCTV cameras have moved most ( but not all ) of the raggedy assed whores off the streets. Begging seems to have declined quite noticably. Encouraged by the council, once derelict shops and businesses are being renovated and reopened. Still lots of junkies though. I've been told that per head of population it is the eighth most heroin addicted place in the UK. I don't know if it's true. There are some reputedly good rehab clinics which draw in junkies from outside the area. If get clean then fine ! The problem is they don't all make it and then end up staying here with all of their junkie ways.
• jealous promoters - crap djs- r.carr - the fire fm - road rage-hard house-ugly birds-two step-bad taste-
• Not living there anymore and having to live in London for work. Dont' get to come home as much as I'd like.
• Having to live away from all the great places that I stored up all those wonderful childhood and teenage memories. I live in London - just not the same as Bournemouth!
• The Kevs ruin the atmosphere most of the time, that is untill an old lady goes to have a word with them and scares them off.
• the imax cinema building
• Drugs.
• Tourists who come down to Southborne Corner, and then winge about us playing footy on the beach, even though we are down there from 9am every morning for the whole summer. If you want to turn into a lobster go down with the rest of them to the pier, and quit whinging at the locals.
• Kids in Helly Hanson puffer jackets starting on everyone and everything, then throwing up through lack of alcahol tolerance!
• Stupid Balloon in the central park. Somebody please burst this bubble!!!
• Only 35 miles from Scumhampton.
• Too many students, closed in the winter and pretty boring really - a lot of gays.
• Snobby bitchy girls and arrogant blokes, okay you get them in every town...
• Grockels
• The lack of a big Woolworths, Virgin Megastore, decent shopping centre and also it needs some sort of attraction like a.....dare I say it.......a theme park :)
• The abundance of designer labels.
• packed with sad townie types, designer shirts,trousers and smart shoes rapidly becoming the hen/stag night capital of the UK most of the pubs/clubs cater for the above too many tourists during the summer too many old people all year round most of the women seem to think they are above everyone else.
• True blue Tory town. No soul or conscience. Little in the way of culture or intellectual pleasures - art gallery, museum, art centre etc. No night buses after midnight only expensive taxis. Boscombe (West) is notorious for hard drugs, crime and prostitution.
• The pretentiousness of my age group. Possibly the best looking boys/girls in the south, but don't they know it. Overpriced beer in shitty club/pubs. Not being able to walk through town in the summer. Man Utd Shirts (or are they all Arsenal ones now?)
• loads of cameras
• Leaving Bournemouth after three months studying English and making friends.
• Potatoes every meal!
• Lots of elderly it must be said.
• Born and lived in Bournemouth. Used to have a lot of good pubs, great restaurants. Was there last year lousy pubs (3?) rotten over-priced food, no decent fish and chips. Town centre all f***** up, rude snotty young punks all over the joint, no parking, rotten drivers. Overall it was Rotten! Rotten! Rotten! But I still love it, MY HOME TOWN.
• All the night clubs in Bournemouth close at 2am.
• Having to pay up to £10 for a crap night in a club that shuts at 1am.
• Headquarters of The Bognor Regis Elderly Fan Club. Est.1996
• The town is the number one Foreign language study centre in Britain. This means that every year, from June onwards, it fills up with foreign students. No racism, but I really hate feeling like an outsider in my home town.
• Tourists - Look isn't there anywhere better for northern/London grockels to go on holiday. The town just fills up with sad middle aged and old people with the kind of clothes socks in sandle wearing grockleness that just drives us up the wall.
• The Women - Chips on their shoulders, because they think that they're all God's gift. To pull [assuming a male perspective] in Bournemouth you have to be or appear to be 1. Well known around the town. 2. Built like a brick shithouse 3. V. Rich. Unless you want to pull a pig.
• The Train Station - falling to pieces.
• Worst by far -- Sinatras night club
• Nosey security cameras everywhere (no parties on the beach).
• All the old people in the summer.
• B.I.C. and some buildings in the town, also the one way system around the town centre = ludicrous!!

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Credits

Last updated: 2008-01-19