THE Daily Echo’s latest book is proving to be hugely popular across the area.

Dorset Then & Now is a fascinating look at how Dorset – including the parts that were once part of Hampshire – has changed over the decades.

It is the latest in a series of high quality books from the Echo which have proved massively popular in recent years.

Dorset Then & Now involved many hours of painstaking work by researchers and photographers to show how familiar parts of the county have developed.

Shots from decades gone by, taken from the Echo’s own archives and local collections, are contrasted with views of the same scenes today.

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

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

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