This last remaining segment of Old Christchurch Road that was open to traffic, between the long-time pedestrianised sections behind and ahead of us, was closed to vehicles in October 2017. It is only now, in the Spring of 2019, that work to remove the carriageway and tart up the area, has been undertaken and it was finished last week.
Here we see the centrepiece - a neatly tarmacked circle in two different shades of grey, with seating around the perimeter. The approaches from directly ahead, behind and to our right are embellished with quotations formed of similar tarmacking of different shades (
SZ0891 : Bournemouth: Beale Place and
SZ0891 : Bournemouth: a quotation in the tarmac).
Beale Place is actually the name given to the short road to our right, originally the western end of Hinton Road but renamed some time in the 1990s after Mr Beale of Beale's department store, which is the large building that we are standing alongside (see
SZ0891 : Bournemouth: Beales taken in 2010 and looking towards us).