IT is famously the town ‘where time is pleasant’ and it has one of the most mature populations in the country.

But that does not mean that Christchurch remains preserved as it was in decades gone by.

A new book, Christchurch Then and Now, shows that the borough has changed more than you might at first think.

Bournemouth author John Needham has assembled the photos and text for the book, which takes pictures from the first half of the 20th century and compares them with the same scenes today.

Mr Needham devotes several pages to views of the Priory. The Priory was to have been built on St Catherine’s Hill, he says, but a legend said that each time the building materials were taken up the hill, they were spirited back down to the present site. The current Priory was completed in 1150.

Among the views of the Priory in the book is a striking 1939 shot of the Avenue and North Porch – complete with a row of elm trees which were later lost to Dutch elm disease. The North Porch, the author notes, was the meeting place for The Sixteen – the burgesses who met before the town had a council.

The book gives us several views of the High Street. In a 1905 picture, we see a number 31 tram, heading for Poole, sharing the road with horse-drawn vehicles. Nearby is the home of James Druitt, the town clerk. Built in the 1840s, the house was left to the county council in 1947 and became the current library.

A shot from the early part of the 20th century shows another tram approaching Ye Olde George Inn, which was originally the George and Dragon and was once a stopover for the Emerald Coach which ran between Lymington and Poole.

One of the liveliest shots in the book is one taken at Bargates in 1919. An army procession is in progress and Mr Needham notes that on July 19 1919, Christchurch’s streets were decorated to celebrate the return of British troops from the territories in which they had fought the First World War. A large bonfire was lit that night on Warren Head.

An altogether smaller special occasion is featured in a shot of the former Congregational Church, where a boys’ day trip is about to take place, with parents and teachers keeping a watchful eye.

Researching the book was a ‘personal journey’, for the author, whose connections with the area go back a long way.

He writes at the outset: “Bosley Farm Tea Gardens was run by my great-grandmother and at one time my great-great uncle used to run the Blackwater Ferry; my grandfather used to own and run St Catherine’s Dairy, which my parents inherited and ran until it was taken over by Unigate in the 1960s.”

l John Needham’s Christchurch Then and Now In Colour is available from the History Press at £14.99.