24# East Cliff Lift

Bournemouth Sea Front Trail

The East Cliff Lift built by Messrs Waygood limited was opened by Lady Meyrick on 16th April 1908. The two lift cars were orinially designed to carry up to ten passengers and ran on rails, technically classifying them as a railway. An electrically powered winding drum raised and lowered the cars then as now. The lift travels a distance of 35m up the cliff at a speed, these days, of 1/2m per second.

The East Cliff Lift  is the oldest of Bournemouth’s cliff railways. It is 170ft (52m) long, rising 117ft (36m) on a 1 in 1.5 (67%) gradient. The track gauge is 5ft 6in (1676mm) and it was built for the Corporation by Messrs Waygood & Co of London. This firm later became a subsidiary of the well known Otis Elevator Co of America.

In July 1940 the lift cars were removed for the duration of World War 2, restored to service in the summer of 1945.

The original wooden cars were replaced, in the early 1960s, by ones of aluminium construction. In 1987 the tracks were renewed and the original timber baulks replaced by pre-cast concrete units.