STREETS of Bournemouth, an online museum of the town’s history, has gone live to the public.

The website has been two and a half years in the making and holds thousands of photos, videos, maps and sound clips.

You can browse it now and search the “exhibits” by dates, themes and locations.

“It’s unique. People will be really excited by it,” said Phyllis Rogers, chairman of the Bournemouth Local Studies Group, at the launch demonstration.

Bournemouth Council and Bournemouth University created the site with a £440,000 grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund.

So why a virtual museum instead of a “real” museum?

Project leader David Ball, from Bournemouth University, said: “That’s a question for the borough council.

“The advantage of an online museum is that anyone anywhere in the world can use it.

“There are people in Australia and United States interested in their family history.

“It’s also not limited in terms of space. We hope over the coming years people will bring along their memories and record them.”

Special features include an index of the origin of street names. There is also a tool for comparing maps of the town over the years.

And the Day Collection, a set of 170 photos taken in the 1860s and 1880s, gets its own area.

One photo shows a gnarled old lady called Margaret Rainey who turned 100 in 1862 – she was born seven years before the Duke of Wellington.

The exhibits show just how quickly Bournemouth developed and outstripped its neighbours, Poole and Christchurch, in terms of national fame.

Saturday marked only the 200th anniversary since Lewis Tregonwell bought the land to build the first house in Bournemouth.

Katherine Barker, chairman of Dorset History Group, said: “It’s first class. In a thousand years people will be able to look at it. Imagine if someone had a record like this of Dorset in Roman times.”

Submissions are welcomed but volunteers must approve them before they go “live”.

Visit streets-of-bournemouth.org.uk..