The iconic Bournemouth Belle and Dorset Belle have provided memorable cruises around Poole Bay for thousands of tourists over many years.

Dorset Cruises, current owners of the Belles, will be continuing to run trips between Poole Quay, Swanage and Brownsea Island and are also introducing a newly restored cruiser, the Dorset Queen, for the summer.

But this year the Belles won’t be the vessels running leisure trips from Bournemouth Pier.

It means, for the first time for 110 years, there will be no association in Bournemouth with the famous Bolson boat-building empire that used to own the Belles.

The Bolson company, however, will forever remain linked with pleasure boating from Bournemouth through the memories of the myriad of day-trippers, holidaymakers and local folk who have taken trips on board the Belles in the past.

Back in 1900, John Henry Bolson started hiring rowing boats from a jetty on the beach.

It was John’s son Jake ‘Ginger’ Bolson who won the first licence to operate a service from the pier in 1913, with the Skylark beginning its trips a year later.

Despite a suspension during wartime, the fleet expanded to 10 Skylarks and 12 speedboats, named Speedlarks, as business boomed.

The famous Bolson shipyard was established in 1930 and they began to convert landing craft, which could hold almost 300 passengers, into pleasure boats used for longer trips to Swanage and Poole.

The Bournemouth Belle, and her sister ship the Poole Belle, were first built in 1948, and trips expanded to the Isle of Wight in the 1960s.

The fleet was eventually replaced by three new Belles in the 1970s, purpose-built with special propellers to navigate the shallow waters and rip tides around Bournemouth Pier.

They were run by the Bolson family before they sold the business in 1996, with Dorset Cruises acquiring the Belles in 2004.