Bournemouth is a large coastal
resort town on the south coast of England directly to the east of the Jurassic
Coast, a 95-mile (153 km) World Heritage Site. According to the 2011
census, the town has a population of 187,503 making it the largest settlement
in Dorset. With Poole to the west and Christchurch in the east, Bournemouth
forms the South East Dorset conurbation, which has a total population of over
400,000.
Before it was founded in 1810 by Lewis Tregonwell, the area was a deserted
heathland occasionally visited by fishermen and smugglers