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Christchurch: Bargates

This page follows Miscellaneous photos, the 1960s. Together with subsequent pages, it constitutes a virtual tour of Christchurch on the Dorset coast of England.

The sequence starts from the railway bridge where Fairmile Road becomes Bargates. Photos of subsequent parts of the route are on following pages.

That’s St. Catherine’s Hill on the horizon.

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Having walked backwards some metres (in a virtual sense) onto the pedestrian bridge, St. Catherine’s Hill is still on the horizon. For a closer look at the hill, see On the hill part 1: South and central.

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Rotating left 90 degrees…

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This view, taken from the platform just beyond the station walkway bridge in the preceding photo and looking in roughly the same direction (west) makes Barrack Road appear to be a minor country road. It is part of the road connecting Christchurch with Pokesdown and Boscombe, next to Bournemouth. The section that goes over that bridge is a four lane dual carriageway:

Although this page is titled Bargates, these photos illustrate the misleading impression gained when viewing the Barrack Road bridge from the station platform.

You might make out the girders of the pedestrian part of the Fairmile/Bargates bridge largely hidden by the station walkway bridge.

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Back on the Fairmile/Bargates rail bridge… Rotating left another 90 degrees…

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And from nearly the same position 59 years back in time…

Space age or not (it had only just begun with Yuri Gagarin’s flight that year) it seems that the pedestrian bridge was not yet in place at this time. The premises of Auto Max (on the left) continued as a used car sales and/or tyre fitter at least until the late 1990s.

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Taking a few more steps toward Bargates…

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Although we are proceeding in a southerly direction, the following photos look northwards.

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We (my brother and I and our mum) had moved from north London to Christchurch, where my maternal grandparents had retired, by 1965.

The metal pedestrian bridge is new since the 1961 photo (it seems). By 2021 it is patched where holes have appeared in its floor. The overhead bus power lines are long gone, as is the signal box to the left of the bridge. The funeral director on the right is still there.

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Before electric ‘trolley’ buses there was a tram, also powered via overhead electric wires. (See Bournemouth Corporation Tramways under External links later on this page.) Perrin Locks Stores became a Post Office before we arrived in about 1964. It is in 2021 a cafe.

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A unisex hair design studio is what used to be called a barber shop…

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Castle’s was there when I first came to the area in 1964. Here in Britain we call a hardware store an iron monger. (Or we used to.)

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I took this photo in the morning. By afternoon, the Coffee Pot is on the shadowed side of the street.

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This topic continues in Christchurch: High Street and Castle Street.

External links

Bournemouth Corporation Tramways Wikipedia entry