House Building Data:
The data used in the three analyses shown in this section was collected from a number of sources: the Dorset Hisory Centre, Bournemouth Central Library, and from individuals who provided details from their own records.
The data collected represents the house building dates for over 80% of the houses in the area, and over 50% for the names of the builders.
However, this is not uniform; for some streets the data represents almost 100% and for other streets it represents only 30%. So if you can help, please do.
Your Help :
Firstly many thanks to everyone who has emailed or rung with information about their house; when it was built or the name of the builder.
If you would like to know when your house was built or who the builder was, email me and I will provide any information I can.
If you know about your house, I would appreciate it if you could contact me with any information you have.
The Next Steps :
The next area of research will include the architectural styles employed by the different builders and how those have changed over time.
If your house has any special architectual features,either internal or external, you can contact me at the address below.
House Building in Talbot & Branksome Woods
By the1860s, the area was part of two large estates, the Branksome Estate and the Talbot Woods Estate. The Branksome Estate, which was owned by George Durrant, started to be developed in the 1870s and 1880s. This initial development was along Branksome Wood Road with large houses on the side of the Bourne Stream and small estates, such as Hume Towers and Benellen Towers, on the hillside leading to Talbot Woods and Poor's Common.
The Talbot Woods Estate which was owned by Georgina Talbot and then her sister Mary Anne Talbot was not developed until the early 1900s, when their successor, the Earl of Leven & Melville decided to develop the Woods. He started close to Winton and the Wimborne Road, with Bryanstone, Stirling, Dunbar and Berwick Roads. His allocation of roads and housing plots moved gradually south and west from the East Avenue/Wimborne Road junction.
It is clear that the Earl gave considerable thought to the layout and naming of the streets and to the size of the houses that were to be built. The major streets, used for access and through traffic, were called Avenue and they were tree lined with plantation verges between the pavement and the roadway. The more quiet residential streets were called Roads and whilst some were tree lined, none had a plantation verge. The street names reflect the Earl's Scottish connections; Glenferness being the name of his house in Nairn, and Leven being his own title.
When an individual or builder bought a plot, one of the coventants they had to agree to defined the minimum floor space of the house that had to be built. Some of houses were over 3000 sq ft, this was reduced to 2600 sq ft, and then later this was reduced to 1900 sq ft. Other sizes may have been demanded but no details of these are available at the present.
When Bournemouth Corporation got permission to change Poor's Common into Meyrick Park, it sold off the land north of the railway as plots of land for residential development. Work started in 1894 on the 32 plots sold by the Corporation, with most being built by the 1914. Four of the plots are now part of Wimborne Road, one is in Dunbar Road and the others are Meyrick Park Crescent.
Between 1920 and 1940, the Earl of Leven & Melville continued his progression westwards and sold off the majority of the plots in Talbot Woods east of Glenferness (as well as some west of Glenferness) for building. At the same time George Durrant's executors were selling off plots around Branksome Hill and Dorset Roads.
From 1945, the development of the area west of Glenferness was completed. However, by 1960 the large houses on Branksome Woods Road were being demolished and replaced by small streets of detached houses or by large blocks of flats. Whilst most of the original Talbot Woods development still exits, most of the initial development of large houses on Branksome Wood Road have been lost.
In order to present the information relating to when the current stock of houses were built, an arbitary set of development phases has been created. The link below will take you to a table which shows the number of buildings in each street or group of streets, and shows the percentage which were built in each phase. All of the analyses have been done on the basis that one house or one block of flats is one building, even though there may be more than one home contained in that building.
The House Builders
Walking down some of the roads in The Woods, it is clear that a number of houses were built by the same builder. They have the same style, shape and external features. In the early years of the development of the area, most of the plots were bought by builders, who would build several houses at a time before selling them on. Since the 1940/50s, however, a significant number of plots have been bought by the actual owners, who then contracted a builder to design and build their new house.
The first of the tables below provides details of the largest builders in the area (qualification being they had to build at least 10 houses), the streets and phases of building, and any other builders with a similar name. The second table shows each street or group of streets and lists the names of the people who built most of those houses.
Analysis of Builders by Street