THE Queen’s Baton Relay will visit Bournemouth and Poole, it has been revealed.

The relay forms part of the celebrations for the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games.

It will travel through Bournemouth and Poole on Monday, July 4, as well as Portland and Weymouth during a tour of the south west.

The home leg of its journey will be taking in 180 towns, cities and villages up and down England and eventually reaching the West Midlands, signalling the symbolic start of the final countdown to the sporting contest’s beginning.

The relay will start in London between Thursday, June 2, and Monday, June 6, coinciding with the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.

It will have taken 294 days and trips to each of the 72 nations that make up the Commonwealth by the time the final mile has been completed at the end of July.

Thousands of ‘Batonbearers’ will be taking turns along the journey – between 40 and 130 each day of the route – through England.

Nigel Huddleston, minister for the Commonwealth Games, said: “The 2022 Queen’s Baton Relay is coming home.

“Travelling the length and breadth of England, the baton will bring the excitement of the Games to every region of the country.

“The relay marks the final countdown to the biggest sporting event to be held in the UK since London 2012, and I hope people come together and line their streets to celebrate this historic moment.”

Notable locations are set to include Cornwall’s Eden Project on July 4, the caves beneath Nottingham Castle on July 10, a speedy trip on a zip wire in the Lake District on July 16 and on to Blackpool Tower the same day.