Slades Farm is an area of Ensbury Park,

Bournemouth Bournemouth ( ) is a coastal resort town in the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole unitary authority area, in the ceremonial county of Dorset, England. At the 2021 census, the built-up area had a population of 196,455, making it the largest ...

Dorset Dorset ( ; Archaism, archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by Somerset to the north-west, Wiltshire to the north and the north-east, Hampshire to the east, t ...

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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 authorities in England, unitary authority, although between 1974 and 1997 it was an administrative non-m ...

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, the model settlement further east; Slade was a later tenant. There had been some modernisation 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 Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

. In 2010, a 250m Olympic size community

cycle track A cycle track or cycleway (''British'') or bikeway (''mainly North American''), sometimes historically referred to as a sidepath, is a separate route for cycles and not motor vehicles. In some cases cycle tracks are also used by other users such ...

was constructed in the community.

Politics

Slades Farm is part of the

Bournemouth West Bournemouth West is a parliamentary constituency in Dorset represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2024 by Jessica Toale, a member of the Labour Party. Constituency profile The constituency includes the western portion ...

constituency An electoral (congressional, legislative, etc.) district, sometimes called a constituency, riding, or ward, is a geographical portion of a political unit, such as a country, state or province, city, or administrative region, created to provi ...

References

{{coord, 50, 44.9, N, 1, 53.8, W, display=title Areas of Bournemouth Housing estates in England