GC4NTAM Bournemouth History: Boscombe Railway Station (Traditional Cache) in Southern England, United Kingdom created by Lost2011

This cache has been archived.

Lost2011: Now that I have "Pier Bandstand" published to replace this cache, I am going to archive this one. Thanks to everyone who has found it. :) The new cache has the same bonus number as this one.

GC4NTAM ▼

A cache by Lost2011 Message this owner

Hidden : 1/27/2014

Difficulty:

Terrain:

Size: Size: micro (micro)

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Geocache Description:

This is my town. I live here. I love it.

This series of 10 stand alone caches, with a bonus at the end, will take you on a journey through Bournemouth, visiting a mix of urban and residential areas, and hopefully learning a little bit of history along the way. For the most part I have tried to make the caches accessible to all.

Following the support and kind comments I received from the "Bournemouth's Past" series, I posted on a social media site for thoughts and suggestions for another series about the town I love. I already had a few ideas left over after the first series, and I was certain my geocaching friends could help me with enough material to make another series, which they did in abundance! I couldn’t choose them all, and some locations weren’t suitable, but I hope you like the choices I have made. Many thanks my friends!

You can find the original "Bournemouth’s Past" series at the following link, which will take you to the most popular cache of the series, Jon Egging, and you will be able to find the other caches in the series from there.

In this "Bournemouth History" series, each cache has a number needed to locate the bonus cache, so you may wish to make notes as you go along.

Due to the urban nature of this series and the high probability of muggles, I have tried to make all the caches easy to find by providing detail in the hints, so please use the spoiler.

Boscombe Station, showing a distant view of Gloucester Road bridge.

Boscombe railway station was a station in Bournemouth. It was opened in 1897 at which time the previous station with the name was renamed Pokesdown. It was the closest station to Dean Court, the home of the football club known during the station's life as Bournemouth and Boscombe Athletic FC.

The station served the Royal Victoria Hospital, known locally as Boscombe Hospital (which was demolished in 1993), and the centre of Boscombe around the Royal Arcade.

During World War I, Boscombe Station was known locally as the Hospital Station, because of the positioning of the hospital on the other side of the road.

The station had a goods yard which received traffic from a large area of Bournemouth, and a large coal depot with sidings. It also had substantial brick buildings which were demolished a few years after closure.

The accompanying image shows a map detailing the layout of the station.

Closure took place, just before the electrification of the line through it, on 4 October 1965. The area of the station yard is now occupied by a small industrial estate and the old coal yard awaits redevelopment. Trains on the South Western Main Line pass the piles of gravel that are all that remain of the platforms. These can still be seen alongside the line from the bridge that carries the Ashley Road over the line just to the west of the site.

There have been calls for the re-opening of the station by the Dorset Area Rail Transport System, as well as by the Bournemouth Liberal Democrats. A major reported stumbling block to reopening is the substantial cost of installing lifts to the tracks and extending the platforms to accommodate 10-car trains.

This cache has been placed overlooking where the station used to be.
Source

FTF: None at present.

Bournemouth's History series:
GC4NTAM: Boscombe Train Station (M)
GC4NTAN: Tucktonia (N)
GC4NTAP: The Shell House (P)
GC4NTAQ: Moordown Halifax Memorial (Q)
GC4NTAR: Racecourse (R)
GC4NTAT: Moordown Tram Depot (T)
GC4NTAV: Waterfront (V)
GC4NTAW: Winter Gardens (W)
GC4NTAX: Typhoid Epidemic (X)
GC4NTAY: Great Train Robbery (Y)
GC4NTAZ: A338 Wessex Way [BONUS] - N50 MN.PQR W001. TV.WXY