Slades Farm is an area of

Ensbury Park Ensbury Park is a mainly residential suburb of Bournemouth, in Dorset, England. It includes the housing estate of Slades Farm and lies within the ward district of Northbourne and Redhill. Initial development Ensbury Park takes its name from t ...

, Bournemouth,

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. Covering an area of , ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

History

A renewed spate of housebuilding took place in the 1970s when

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 ...

purchased Slade's Farm, south of Columbia Road, following an increased demand for low-cost housing in the borough. This was one of the last areas of agricultural land within the Bournemouth boundary. The farm dated back to about 1850 and was originally known as Talbot Farm, taking its name from

Talbot Village Talbot Village is located on the boundary of Bournemouth and Poole in Dorset, England. The old Talbot Village was built between 1850 and 1862 because of the generosity of two sisters, Georgina and Mary Talbot. Georgina and Mary divided their y ...

, the model settlement further east; Slade was a later tenant. There had been some modernization of the farm over the years - in 1945 the trustees of the Talbot estate, who owned the freehold, applied for planning permission for a 'milk cooling shed' there - but by the 1960s the entire site had fallen out of use. When Bournemouth Council eventually purchased the land, proposals were drawn up for around 400 new dwellings ranging from bedsits for the elderly to three-bedroomed houses, the nucleus of which would be the newly-cut Slade's Farm Road. An additional development around this time was Slade's Farm Secondary School, catering for children with special educational needs: this opened in September 1975. As for Slade's Farmhouse, this was given Grade II listed status when the above-mentioned developments began, but having failed to find a use for the building - and in view of its condition, after many years of non-occupation - the council applied to the Department of the Environment to have it demolished in November 1975. Demolition followed two years later, along with further development of the Columbia Road frontage. Some idea of the property may be had from the neighbourin
Lollipop Farm House
also listed, which survives in Columbia Road as a result of a comprehensive repair programme in the 1980s, where the original materials of the property were put to fresh use.

Amenities

In 1978, the skate park became one of the first to be purpose built in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

. In 2010, a 250m Olympic size community

cycle track A cycle track, separated bike lane or protected bike lane (sometimes historically referred to as a sidepath) is an exclusive bikeway that has elements of a separated path and on-road bike lane. A cycle track is located within or next to the r ...

was constructed in the community.

Politics

Slades Farm is part of the Bournemouth West constituency.

References

Areas of Bournemouth Housing estates in England {{Dorset-geo-stub