e attaches as much importance as Bournemouth to the advantages of
providing her visitors and residents with an abundance of open spaces,
tastefully laid out, and having, in some cases, tennis courts and
bowling greens.

The piers of both Bournemouth and Boscombe are great centres of
attraction for visitors, apart from those who only use them for the
purpose of reaching the many steamboats that ply up and down the coast.
A landing pier of wood, eight hundred feet long and sixteen feet in
width, was opened on 17th September, 1861. It cost the modest sum of
_L_4000. During the winter of 1865-6 many of the wooden piles were found
to have rotted, and were replaced by iron piles. A considerable portion
of the pier was treated in a similar manner in 1866, and again in 1868.
With this composite and unsightly structure Bournemouth was content
until 1878, when the present pier was commenced, being formally opened
in 1880. It was extended in 1894, and again in 1909. Boscombe Pier, as
already stated, was opened in 1889 by the then Duke of Argyll.

[Illustration: BOURNEMOUTH: THE CHILDREN'S CORNER, LOWER GARDENS

Owing to their proximity to the Pier and the shore, these Gardens are
much frequented by the people and afford great delight to children.]

Of Bournemouth's many modern churches that of St. Peter, situated at the
junction of the Gervis and the Hinton Roads, has interesting historical
associations, apart from its architectural appeal.

In the south transept John Keble used to sit during his prolonged stay
at Bournemouth in the closing years of his life. He is commemorated by
the "Keble Windows", and the "Keble Chapel", within the church, and by a
metal tablet affixed to the house "Brookside", near the pier, where he
passed away in 1866. The churchyard is extremely pretty, being situated
on a well-wooded hillside. The churchyard cross was put up in July,
1871. In the churchyard are buried the widow of the poet Shelley,
together with her father, Godwin the novelist, and her mother, who was
also a writer of some distinction. Taken altogether, this church, with
its splendid windows and richly-wrought reredos and screens, is one of
the most pleasing modern churches in the country, both with regard to
its architecture and its delightful situation.

This hillside churchyard under the pine trees, together with
"Brookside", where Keble lived, and Boscombe Manor, with its memories of
the Shelleys, are the only literary shrines Bo