IT was a record breaking month for the Bournemouth Echo online in July.

The website attracted its highest-ever number of unique browsers, with 850,176 people recording more than 7.1million page impressions.

Stories you read included a wedding car driver who faced court for illegally sounding his Dixie Land-themed air horn, flash flooding in the Lower Gardens and Eddie Mitchell’s vision for Sandbanks.

Proms also proved a major attraction, with picture galleries capturing the special moment for students at schools across Bournemouth, Poole, Christchurch and Ferndown, recording 163,410 views.

Dozens of readers had their cameras at the ready when a dramatic lightning storm illuminated the skies over Dorset for two nights last month and a gallery of images attracted more than 105,551 views.

Stunning footage of Bournemouth seafront filmed by reader Rick Aisthorpe using an aerial drone was the most-watched video of the month, with more than 14,000 views. The film showcased the delights of Bournemouth beach over land and water.

We also smashed another record when we reached 30,000 likes on our Facebook page - the highest of any Newsquest paper and a rise of 220% on July last year.

The Bournemouth Daily Echo, Dorset Echo and Bridport and Lyme Regis News sites combined reached a record 1.1million readers in July and 9.4m page impressions.

It was the fourth time this year that the three websites attracted more than one million users.

The Dorset Echo site attracted 249,846 unique browsers and 2,118,051 page impressions, while the Bridport and Lyme Regis News had 30,335 unique browsers and 138,884 page impressions.