Identifying a Bournemouth building

[spiderboy]

Sorry about getting my Uppers and Lowers mixed up Of course the Upper gardens are beyond the old Mont Dore Hotel (Town Hall) towards Coy Pond. Now that I can see the third X I'll stick my neck out and suggest that it's above the shop on the corner of Westover Road and Gervis Place. I think by the early 50s and possibly earlier this was Daniel Reed's (can't remember if that's the right spelling) or am I getting my Daniels mixed up - there was another one further along Westover Road near the Palace Court. It was certainly a branch of a rather upmarket outfitters and I'm pretty sure I remember them having a mixture of tweeds and evening dress wear in their windows. Being a little bit older I do remember walking along the sea front towards the end of WW2 and seeing the coils of barbed wire strung out along beach.

[Lizziefritz]

Thanks Spiderboy,

That last bit about the beach really helps as my mother told me a story about being out for a walk with a boyfriend on the beach and being strafed by a German plane.  Some friends told me that the story couldn't be true as the beaches were barricaded and mined.  Sounds like I could be both right and wrong in my recollection of the story.  Would have had to have happened in about 1943.

[Jebber]

I think you mean Austin Reed on the corner of Gervis Place and Westover Road.  The other one you are thinking of was Daniel and Neal just before the Palace Court  Hotel, that is where my mother had to buy my school uniform, very expensive it was too.

Jebber

[Redroger]

I'm a fairly new boy to Bournemouth, but aren't the crosses in the vicinity of what is today Beale's?

[Jebber]

Sorry Redroger, you have lost your bearings. As you look at the centre of the picture Gervis Place, is the right hand fork, Old Christchurch Road the left, Beales is between the two, where they meet Hinton Road, close to St Peter's Church whose spire you can see in the picture.

Jebber

[ScouseBoy]

Thanks Spiderboy,

That last bit about the beach really helps as my mother told me a story about being out for a walk with a boyfriend on the beach and being strafed by a German plane.  Some friends told me that the story couldn't be true as the beaches were barricaded and mined.  Sounds like I could be both right and wrong in my recollection of the story.  Would have had to have happened in about 1943.

My Auntie  told a similar story  about walking along the promenade somewhere in that area with her young son  and being machine gunned by a german plane.   They had to dive to the ground.

[Flakdodger]

There was a big tip and run attack on 23 May 1943 (a Sunday mid-day) carried out by something like 26 Fw 190s of SKG (Schnellkampfgeschwader) 10.
Civilian casualties: 77 killed  45 seriously injured  150 slightly injured.
Service casualties: 31 killed  3 missing  38 wounded.
This unit also mounted a simultaneous attack on Hastings and Bexhill.
This was not the only strafing of Bournemouth, but the one that would no doubt linger in people's memories.
Dave

[Lizziefritz]

Thanks.  I did know about the May 23rd raid.  Found out quite a bit about it.  My dad spent the afternoon digging out the dead and wounded from the Metropole and my Mum helped out with a group of kids whose residence had been hit.  That might have all been later on the same day as the strafing but I can't be sure.  They both told me about their parts in that raid separately.  He was newly arrived in Bournemouth that March while she had lived in the Boscombe are since before the war.  She worked at Fuller's Tea Shop. 

[Redroger]

Yes, you're right Beales is on the pedestrianised part.