IT was the route where Boscombe’s first building sprang up in Victorian times.
Christchurch Road in Boscombe was the suburb’s main thoroughfare with the first building appearing in Victorian times.
In 1878, the Ragged Cat was built, it later became the Palmerston Arms Hotel, which in recent years became the home of a Polish Delicatessen. The archway where horses and coaches once entered is still there.
Houses and shops began to spring up in the area from 1884 and Boscombe became a fashionable area for the wealthy.
The Royal Arcade was opened by the Duke of Connaught, the third son of Queen Victoria, in 1893, while the Hippodrome music hall, now the O2 Academy, opened in 1900.
Over many decades more retail and entertainment establishments were added, and the road became increasingly more popular.
But the biggest upheaval in the road’s history was the decision in the 1980s to pedestrianise much of Christchurch Road.
The issue was under discussion for many years, and it wasn’t until the late 1980s that work got underway and a little later the new retail development, the Sovereign Centre.
The opening of the Sovereign Centre proved to be one of the key events in the retailing life of the area, but there were to be challenges ahead following the opening of Castlepoint and the downturn in the retail sector we are currently experiencing.
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