Dorset Then & Now – new book documents how county has changed

A NEW book from the Daily Echo that shows a century of change across Dorset is flying off the shelves ahead of Christmas.

Dorset Then & Now provides a fascinating record of how Bournemouth, Poole, Christchurch and the wider county have changed over the years.

It presents vintage pictures from the decades alongside new ones of the same locations.

A unique feature is the use of ‘blends’, which mix old pictures with new ones to dramatically show how some scenes have changed.

The scenes were painstakingly put together by Echo multimedia designer John Nesbitt.

Dorset’s towns feature heavily in the book, with photographs that illustrate the large amount of development that has taken place over the decades.

The often controversial transformation of Bournemouth’s iconic seafront is startling to see, while parts of Poole are almost unrecognisable from the same scenes more than 40 years ago.

The ‘old’ pictures in the book range from 1910 to 1993 and include busy town centres and unspoilt village scenes, as well as other locations in bygone times.

The 160-page hardback book features pictures from the Daily Echo’s own extensive archives and those of other local collections and museums.

Like previous books from the Daily Echo and Dorset Echo, it is already proving a bestseller alongside national titles at local bookshops.

Echo photographers went to great lengths to replicate the vantage points used as closely as possible.

Take our online quiz at bournemouthecho.co.uk/thenandnow and see if you can identify eight Dorset locations from the new book.