page_title: Westbourne, Dorset
section_title: Notable residents
hierarchical_section_title: Westbourne, Dorset / Notable residents
caption_attribution_description: English: Westbourne: looking down on Alum Chine The view south from 972212, the path heading for the sea.
context_page_description: Westbourne is an affluent residential and shopping area of Bournemouth, Dorset. It is located in between Branksome, Poole and the centre of Bournemouth, just off the main A338. Poole Road, mainly full of specialised shops and small cafes, runs through the centre Westbourne with Seamoor Road curving round bringing more shops and services. Many of the shops have residential property above them.
context_section_description: The subarea known as Alum Chine provides a pathway to the beach, and is crossed by a pedestrian suspension bridge. Branksome Dene chine (a chine being the local name for a deep gorge caused by river erosion extending to the sea) is nearby and it was on a bridge across this chine (now gone) from which Winston Churchill fell when he was a child, breaking both legs and damaging his kidneys. Robert Louis Stevenson was Westbourne's most famous resident, who lived at 'Skerryvore' on the West Cliff between 1885 and 1887. While at this rather ordinary house he wrote Kidnapped and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, as well as part of Treasure Island while he was recovering from an illness. It is here that John Singer Sergeant painted R.L. Stevenson pacing his drawing room with his wife sitting nearby in 1885 and a novel of his life while residing in Westbourne (published in 1929 titled 'R.L.S and his Sine Qua Non') was written by Adelaide A. Boodle.  There is small statue commemorating his work on the site of the house he lived in, which was destroyed in the Second World War. Florence Nightingale had an interest in Westbourne when in 1867 she was a prime mover in the building of the Herbert Home Hospital.
  The singer Ray Dorset of Mungo Jerry lives in the area as does British boxer Steve Bendall.
caption: Alum Chine
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