A DEVELOPER is appealing for information after becoming fascinated by the history of a Bournemouth pub.

Richard Gale took over the troubled Ragged Cat on Christchurch Road in Boscombe and has just finished turning it into five flats, three houses and two shops.

He found maps that show there was an inn of some description on the site in around 1800, much earlier than the earliest written recording he could find.

Mr Gale, 48, from Ringwood, became interested when he bought the pub following years of trouble at the premises.

He acquired legal documents from when Sir Henry Drummond Wolff bought the surrounding land in 1868 and had nearby streets like Cecil Road named after his relatives.

At that time, it was called the Palmerston Arms, the name that is still etched in stone on the building today.

He went to the library and found written records from the 1840s saying that the pub was called the Ragged Cat and that the licensee was a James Cody.

And he found maps from the time of the 1802 Enclosure Act that show an unnamed inn stood on almost on the same spot.

In recent times the pub has born the name Deacon’s and, again, the Ragged Cat.

He said: “Researching sort of overtakes you. I thought I would be at the library for a few minutes and I was there for hours.

“It’s going to take a bit more investigation to find out more about the inn from around 1800. There were only two other buildings in Boscombe Manor at the time.

“We tried to keep as many of the original features as possible. I’ve found it quite fascinating – all of a sudden you realise the history of the area.”