Stourfield House

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.

This article was submitted by John Cresswell of Southbourne.