When applying to university, there are a few factors to consider, such as location – after all, this will be your home for the next 3-4 years! Bournemouth is a great place to live, you have the sun and the sea (and an amazing university, of course!) but aside from the beach, what else is Bournemouth famed for?

Check out these top 10 interesting facts about Bournemouth and who knows… maybe one of them will sway your decision to come here!

1. Bournemouth gets an average of 7.7 hours of sun a day during the summer. This can only mean one thing… beach day all day, every day when it comes to June!*
2. The coastline just west of Bournemouth, called the Jurassic Coast, is England’s first and only natural World Heritage Site and it’s the only place where you can explore 185 million years of our history.

Ice creams on the beach!

3. Over 750,000 ice creams are served along the Bournemouth sea front every year! (A good 100,000 of those are most likely bought by me!)*
4. The first ever recorded mention of Bournemouth was in 1406 when an 18ft fish washed up on its shores, although at the time, the area was called ‘La Bournemowthe’**
5. Literary Lover? Well you’ll adore this next fact: Bournemouth has been home to
   

   Author, Mary Shelley

   some pivotal writers of our time, such as JRR Tolkien, Enid Blyton and Mary Shelley. Mary Shelley herself is buried in Bournemouth with her husband’s heart.

6. Amanda Holden once rode a scooter around Bournemouth. Stark. Naked. For a £20 bet.*
7. After Liverpool and London, Bournemouth is the UK town where The Beetles played the most concerts – there must have been something they liked down here, like the lovely town perhaps?*
8. The National Piers Society (who’d have thought that was an actual thing?) declared the Boscombe Pier to be the Pier of the Year in 2010. However this title pales in comparison to it also being dubbed as ‘Britain’s Coolest Pier’ after its renovation in 2009.***
   

   Boscombe Pier

9. In 1810 a business man called Lewis Tregonwell visited the beach and his wife loved it so much he built her a house there. It was the only house to exist on that piece of land for about 20 years, but was subsequently knocked down.****

10. BU Graduates have worked on many blockbuster films such as Interstellar, Guardians of the Galaxy and X-Men: Days of Future Past, winning Baftas and Oscars along the way.

I hope you enjoyed reading these facts about Bournemouth. No matter where you are thinking of applying to, it’s always a good idea to research the history of the area to get a feel of the type of place you plan to spend the next few years of your life in.

*Source: Daily Echo
**Source:  A. McKinstry, The Village of Tuckton, 35,000 BC – 1926(Christchurch: Natula Publications, 2015)
***Source: National Piers Society
****Source: Wikipedia

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