Twelve years ago Poole historian Frank Henson bought a leather bound album of Boscombe Gardens at Wimborne Market.

The album contained photographs of the gardens and surrounding area taken about the time it was opened in June 1900. The album is rare as there is little recorded of the early days of Boscombe Gardens.

Peter Kazmiercak of Bournemouth Central Library Heritage said the gardens are better known as Boscombe Cliff Gardens or sometimes they have been referred to as Boscombe Overcliff Gardens.

Before her death in June 1899, Lady Shelley, the wife of Sir Percy Shelley, had arranged for the gift of four acres of cliff frontage to the town and with another two acres bought by the council the land was laid out to form Boscombe Cliff Gardens.

The gardens were opened on June 6 by Robert Brooke Campbell Scarlett, later 6th Baron Abinger. The brother of Captain Shelley Scarlett, he was the son of the adopted daughter of Sir Percy and Lady Shelley and was heir to the Shelley Estate, becoming 5th Baron Abinger in 1903.

John Clark Webber, the Mayor of Bournemouth, was also at the ceremony.

In 1904 part of the gardens were replaced by a bowling green. Seven years later a croquet lawn and two grass tennis courts were added to the site.

In 1922 the croquet lawn was made into another bowling green. Two years later the site was reduced after part of the cliff subsided in severe storms.

In 1968 a 12-hole mini golf course replaced two of the tennis courts. Later new entrance gates were erected to mark the 50th anniversary of Boscombe and Southbourne Rotary Club.