East Howe is a residential district of the town of

Bournemouth Bournemouth () is a coastal resort town in the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole council area of Dorset, England. At the 2011 census, the town had a population of 183,491, making it the largest town in Dorset. It is situated on the Southern ...

Dorset Dorset ( ; archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the unitary authority areas of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole and Dorset (unitary authority), Dors ...

on the south coast of England.

Origins

The district takes its name from the now-archaic English word "howe", variously defined as denoting a depression or a stretch of high ground. There is a ridge of high ground stretching across to the west, which appears to have given rise to the toponyms

High Howe High may refer to: Science and technology * Height * High (atmospheric), a high-pressure area * High (computability), a quality of a Turing degree, in computability theory * High (tectonics), in geology an area where relative tectonic uplift to ...

West Howe West Howe is a suburb of Bournemouth, Dorset, England, located in the north-west provinces of the borough. Largely consisting of affordable housing owned by the Local Authority, many of the homes have been purchased by long term residents of th ...

and East Howe, certainly prior to 1826 when all three settlements were marked on Greenwood's map of Dorset. Previously, a 'How Corner' had featured on Paterson's 1785 map of Dorset, seemingly denoting a bend in the Poole to Ringwood road (now the A348) as it passed through the High Howe area.

'Headless Cross Lane'

East Howe is approached from the ancient district of

Kinson Kinson is a former village which has been absorbed by the town of Bournemouth in the county of Dorset in England. The area became part of Bournemouth on 1 April 1931. There were two electoral wards containing the name Kinson (North & South). Thei ...

via East Howe Lane, which was known as 'Headless Cross Lane' in the 1920s on account of the T-shape formed by its junction with Wimborne Road. This T-junction was marked as 'Headless Cross' on Ordnance Survey maps between 1888 and 1969. Previously it had been known as 'Rigler's Cross' after William Rigler, a landowner at the time of the 1851 census, whose descendants still live in the Kinson and East Howe areas. The junction was reconfigured in 1962 when Broadway Lane was extended to meet up with Headless Cross; around the same time, land on the south-west side of the junction was acquired by

Bournemouth Borough Council Bournemouth Borough Council was the local authority of Bournemouth in Dorset, England and ceased to exist on 1 April 2019. It was a unitary authority, although between 1974 and 1997 it was an administrative district council with Dorset. Previou ...

who proceeded to lay it out as a recreation area. The area was to be christened 'Headless Cross Park', but on reflection this was thought to sound too gruesome and 'East Howe Recreation Ground' was suggested as an alternative.

Brook Road

Further south, East Howe Lane is joined by Brook Road in which there once stood Howe Lodge, an eighteenth-century property, thought to have been home to the local smuggler and landowner

Isaac Gulliver Isaac Gulliver (1745–1822) was an English smuggler based on the South Coast of England, South Coast. Gulliver and his gang ran fifteen luggers to transport gin, silk, lace and tea from the Continent to Poole Bay and came to control the coast f ...

. Described as a "rambling battlemented manor house", it was demolished in 1958 to allow for road-widening. Its last tenant prior to demolition was William Charles Veal, who rented it from

and ran a timber-yard there; when digging in the garden, soon after he moved in around 1947, he came upon a brick tunnel and was able to walk along it for 30 or 40 yards before it came to a sudden stop. The tunnel was accessed via a cellar beneath a trapdoor in the living room, presumably a relic of Gulliver's smuggling past.

Politics

East Howe is part of the Bournemouth West parliamentary constituency. East Howe is divided between two wards for elections to

Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council is a unitary local authority for the district of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole in England that came into being on 1 April 2019. It was created from the areas that were previously administered by ...

;

and Redhill and Northbourne.

References

{{Bournemouth Areas of Bournemouth