page_title: Bournemouth
section_title: Religion
hierarchical_section_title: Bournemouth / Religion
caption_attribution_description: English: Bournemouth Hebrew Congregation, Wootton Gardens, Bournemouth, England, seen from the east
context_page_description: Bournemouth is a coastal resort town on the south coast of England. At the 2011 census, the town had a population of 183,491, making it the largest in the administrative county of Dorset. With Poole to the west and Christchurch in the east, Bournemouth is part of the South East Dorset conurbation, which has a population of 465,000.
  Before it was founded in 1810 by Lewis Tregonwell, the area was a deserted heathland occasionally visited by fishermen and smugglers. Initially marketed as a health resort, the town received a boost when it appeared in Augustus Granville's 1841 book, The Spas of England. Bournemouth's growth accelerated with the arrival of the railway, and it became a town in 1870. Part of the historic county of Hampshire, Bournemouth joined Dorset for administrative purposes following the reorganisation of local government in 1974. Through local government changes in 1997, the town began to be administered by a unitary authority independent of Dorset County Council, although it remains part of that ceremonial county.
context_section_description: The 2011 census revealed that 57.1% of the borough's population are Christian. With all other religions combined only totalling 4.7%, Christianity is by far the largest religious group.
  40% of the borough falls within the Church of England Diocese of Salisbury. The remainder, to the east, belongs to the Diocese of Winchester.
  The Roman Catholic Diocese of Portsmouth incorporates most of Bournemouth with the exception of two small parishes to the west which are covered by the Diocese of Plymouth.
  The borough has several notable examples of Victorian church architecture including the previously mentioned St. Peter's, the churchyard of which contains the grave of the author Mary Shelley; St Stephen's Church, completed in 1898 for services under the influence of the Oxford Movement and St Clement's, one of the first churches to be designed by John Dando Sedding, built in Boscombe in 1871. To serve a rapidly expanding population a third church was built in the town centre in 1891. St Augustin's church was commissioned by Henry Twells who was 'priest-in-charge' there until 1900. The largest church in the town is the Richmond Hill St Andrew's Church, part of the United Reformed Church. Built in 1865 and enlarged in 1891, it has a seating capacity of 1,100 and is unusually ornate for a non-conformist church.
  Few purpose-built places of worship exist in the borough for faiths other than Christianity, although with a higher proportion of Jewish residents than the national average, there are three synagogues.Chabad-Lubavitch of Bournemouth is a branch of the worldwide movement. The Bournemouth Reform Synagogue, formerly known as Bournemouth New Synagogue, is a Reform Jewish synagogue with over 700 members. There is also the architecturally notable Bournemouth Hebrew Congregation synagogue built in 1911 with an Art Nouveau take on the Moorish Revival style. There are also two Christadelphian meeting halls in the town.
  The Bournemouth Islamic Centre provides information, support and a place of worship for the Islamic community. There is also a mosque in the town.
caption: The Bournemouth Hebrew Congregation
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