4# Bournemouth Town Hall

Postcard of The Mont Dore Hotel in 1910 before it became the Town Hall.

The Town Hall

Standing outside Bournemouth’s Town Hall perhaps you’re thinking that this doesn’t look very much like how a typical town hall might appear. You’d be right, because this building was originally an hotel – the Mont Dore.

The foundation stone of the Mont Dore was laid by Oscar II, King of Sweden and Norway, on 25^th May 1881. The five-storey building was designed in the Italian style by Alfred Bedborough and constructed by Messrs Howell & Son. It opened on 23^rd May 1885 and offered the latest in water treatments, both external (showers, jet sprays and vapours) and internal (drinking Mont Dore water imported from Auvergne in France).

The luxurious hotel was requisitioned during the First World War for use as a hospital for Indian troops and later as a convalescent home for British Officers.

After the war the building was purchased by Bournemouth Corporation in 1920, opening after internal alterations, as the Town Hall on 1^st October 1921. A new Council Chamber was completed in July 1932.

A two-storey extension in St Stephen’s Road was finished by November 1972, whilst a larger seven-storey block behind the original hotel was officially opened in February 1992. To make way for the latter, the Grand Hall had to be demolished in 1989.

In 2002 the original Mont Dore part of the Town Hall was designated a Grade II listed building.