History

In 1987, Dorset County Council announced it was going to flatten the old Beaufort School to make way for extra play areas for the adjoining Stourfield Junior and Infant Schools.

But following protests from Councillors and the Southbourne Ratepayers Association the County agreed to only demolish surplus buildings, handing the rest over for community use.

The Beaufort Community Association was born with the help of the Borough Council and a three month reinstatement programme got under way. Some £35,000 was spent upgrading  the former school.

On Saturday 30th September 1989 a new Community Centre was born and open to the public after two years of hard work, debates and plans. The day was celebrated by a gala opening and more than 500 residents turned out for the event.

Southbourne is a popular suburb of Bournemouth. It is the most easterly part of the borough, between Boscombe and Christchurch, Dorset. The area was previously known as Stourfield.

In 1766, Edmund Bott had a Georgian mansion built to the east of Pokesdown village, commanding views of Christchurch Harbour and he named it Stourfield House. One of the most celebrated inhabitants of Stourfield House was Mary Eleanor Bowes, Countess of Strathmore and Kinghorne. Stourfield House later became a care home, looking after servicemen who had been injured in the Great War. Today only the front steps survive, leading to a block of flats in Douglas Mews, and marked by a Blue Plaque.

Apart from the pre-Norman Conquest villages along the southern banks of the Stour, what was to become the Borough of Bournemouth was desolate heathland. A track ran across linking Christchurch to Poole (now the busy Christchurch and Poole Roads). Bournemouth’s first dwelling house was actually built in Southbourne, close to this track.

Stourfield House was erected around 1766 by Edmund Bott in some 140 acres of grounds. It stood on the crest overlooking the Stour valley.

Around 1796 Lady Strathmore lived there for a few years before she died, after which there was a series of temporary eminent occupants until Admiral Popham bought it in 1844.
Towards the end of the century the estate was bought by a syndicate and broken up for development, the plots fetching between £70 to £130. Pokesdown Station had been opened in 1886, and allowed the western end of Southbourne to grow. Stourfield House was opened as a grammar school in 1894 but when the educational facilities moved a few years later, the building was enlarged and became the Home Sanitorium for consumptive patients, where it faced onto Beaufort Road.

In 1923 the hospital was acquired by the British Legion and renamed Douglas House. After the war it came under the NHS, but in 1989 the Home closed and it was mostly demolished. Like the Cheshire Cat’s smile, all that remains of this nearly 250-year old house is the original external staircase.

Seabourne Road, Southbourne.

Beaufort School