For many decades RPBC used “Boscombe East” because:
Rosebery Park Baptist Church is in the electoral ward previously called ‘Boscombe East’, so there is that justification for it having had this address in recent history.
The Post Office at 836 Christchurch Road is called ‘Boscombe East Post Office’. (We are at 812-814 Christchurch Road) – but its tag line is “Serving Pokesdown for over 50 years”!
The local newspaper, The Echo, reported recent road works which were in front of the church as “Christchurch Road, Boscombe East (towards Pokesdown end)”
It was the area’s custom to shy away from using “Pokesdown”.
It’s possible some Christians were/are uncomfortable using the name “Pokesdown” because of its (unsubstantiated but popular) association with pixies/fairies/witches/goblins.
Image: Boscombe East Post Office Sign. They are at 836 Christchurch Road, just past the junction with Warwick Road. Source Boscombe East Post Office Twitter.
But we have recently changed back to “Pokesdown” because:
The electoral ward, since October 2018 is now called “Boscombe East AND Pokesdown”.
Some people regard Boscombe East as the area past Pokesdown Station, down ‘Pokesdown Hill’, where the next set of shops are, eg. ‘Boscombe East News Food and Wine Premier store’ at 1115 Christchurch Road. – but, a few doors along at 1069 Christchurch Road is “Pokesdown Chippy”!
Rosebery Park Baptist Church is in-between two sign posts on Christchurch Road announcing you are in Pokesdown, one at the top of Somerset Road, and one on Pokesdown Green, next to the Bell Inn.
As per the blue history-of-the-church booklet, in the early 1930s it was suggested the church name be changed to “Pokesdown Baptist Church” (this was not supported by the church members, who preferred the name Rosebery Park, but it shows “Pokesdown” was the logical alternative).
The new “normal” for the area is “Proud to be Pokesdown”, thanks to the work of the Pokesdown Community Forum.
Image: Front cover of RPBC’s ‘Good News’ magazine for April 2021.
Sign at the top of Somerset Road. Photo taken 9th March 2021 for RPBC.
Sign on Pokesdown Green, next to the Bell Inn. Photo taken 9th March 2021 for RPBC.
On the church’s website -for the pragmatic reason of wanting the church to show up in search engine listings for all of the nearby area- we have chosen to describe the address as: “812-814 Christchurch Road, between Boscombe and Pokesdown, Bournemouth, BH7 6DF”. “Between Boscombe and Pokesdown” is really an abbreviated form of “between the Cafe Boscanova end of the pedestrianised shopping area of Boscombe, and the Pokesdown Railway Station”.
Sign at the top of Parkwood Road, almost exactly opposite the church. Photo taken 9th March 2021 for RPBC.
The copy and paste citation for this page:
The History of Rosebery Park Baptist Church and Pokesdown – Pokesdown: the name, Page 8. Author: Michelle Fogg. Date: May 2022. Url: https://roseberypark.org/history/pokesdown-the-name-8/
Rosebery Park Baptist Church, 812-814 Christchurch Road, between Boscombe and Pokesdown, Bournemouth, BH7 6DF
The 1920 edition of Kelly’s Directory, under the category heading ‘Pokesdown’, has a note which reads “Marked thus * should be addressed to Stourfield park” and one of the addresses marked thus is the home address of Rev. William Henry Perkins, M.A. (Baptist), 13 Arnewood Road! So one of our own Ministers preferred to give his address as ‘Stourfield Park’ rather than ‘Pokesdown’!!
The new Astoria Cinema is CLEARLY in POKESDOWN! The description of the address fits within all the different Pokesdown boundaries venn diagram (see page Pokesdown: its boundaries). But is referred to as being in Boscombe or “Bournemouth East”.
To round-up, suggested alternative names for Pokesdown include: Maybourne; Brooksdown; Richmond-on-Sea; Bournemouth East; Pinecliff; Pinehurst-on-Sea; Boscombe Park; Stourcliff; Avonhurst; Havenbourne; Portman Park; Boscombe East; Stourbourne; Portman Cliff; West Southbourne; Stourfield Park; Boscombe.145
The copy and paste citation for this page:
The History of Rosebery Park Baptist Church and Pokesdown – Pokesdown: the name, Page 7. Author: Michelle Fogg. Date: May 2022. Url: https://roseberypark.org/history/pokesdown-the-name-7/
Rosebery Park Baptist Church, 812-814 Christchurch Road, between Boscombe and Pokesdown, Bournemouth, BH7 6DF
I have seen no written evidence for this, but anecdotally it is also suggested that some Christians dislike the name “Pokesdown” because of its unsubstantiated but popular association with pixies/fairies/witches/ goblins. To many non-Christians, pixies and fairies sound like mischievous, harmless, fun. But a Christian’s internal alarm bell may ring at the mention of a supernatural entity (even if it’s a made-up one) that is not from God.
Witches and goblins are even more disturbing. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines a “goblin” as “an ugly or grotesque sprite that is usually mischievous and sometimes evil and malicious”.140 You can see why a Christian might be reluctant to name their church or area the church is in after a name which some translate as “Goblin’s Hill” – “Welcome to the ‘Hill of the Evil & Malicious Supernatural Creature’ Baptist Church”!!
The fact that the reference book for “Kit with The Candlestick” and “Puck” and “Pooka” is called “The Complete Book of Devils and Demons” should also go some way to help explaining the Christian’s disquiet about this being the origin of the name “Pokesdown”!134f
Puck and Fairies, from ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, Act II, Scene II; by Joseph Noel Paton; Yale Center for British Art. Source: Art UK.
There is some of evidence of local religiously-motivated strong views: we know that in Boscombe, in 1896, a local person added an architectural “grotesque” to his roof top to stare in protest at the theatre opposite in disapproval of it daring to open on Sundays.141And there was opposition to trams running on Sundays too.142
But as there is no written record of Christians rejecting the name of Pokesdown on religious or spiritual grounds at any point in its history, we can only speculate.
If we zoom out from Pokesdown, and look at the whole of England, it’s still difficult to get a picture of the strength of Christian opinion on the subject of pixies/fairies/witches/ goblins, because there is room for different opinions within Christianity, and because of big shifts in opinions during different periods of history. To give two examples, there is written evidence of late-Elizabethan and seventeenth-century English Protestants equating fairies with ‘falsehood, Catholicism, and the invisible wiles of the Devil’.143 But there was also Reginald Scot’s publication in 1584, called ‘A Discovery of Witchcraft’, which, The British Library explains, was:
“a sceptical treatise recording and debunking popular and scholarly beliefs about witchcraft, magic and other superstitions. Scot argued that belief in magic was both irrational and un-Christian. He suggested non-magical reasons and causes for both magical phenomena and accusations of witchcraft. These included psychological and sociological causes.” 143aa
A 1921 journalist telling us about Reginald Scot describes his comprehensive work as aiming to prove
“that the belief in witchcraft and magic was alike opposed to reason and religion… he did his utmost to stay the cruel persecution habitually pursuing poor, aged and simple persons popularly credited with being witches… his work for a time made great impressions on the magistracy and clergy…”
But when James I became king he ordered all of Scot’s works burned. In 1684, Scot wrote:143a
“In our childhood our mother’s maids… so frayed us with hill-beggars, spirits, witches, urchins, elves, hags, fairies, satyrs, Pans, fauns, sylvans, Kit-with-the-Candlestick, [nineteen other named creatures], Hobgoblin, and such other bugbears that we are afraid of our own shadows…”
“Well, thanks be to God, this wretched and cowardly infidelity since the preaching of the Gospel [the good news that Jesus saves us from our sins and reunites us with a loving and forgiving God] is in part forgotten, and doubtless the rest of these illusions will in a short time, by God’s Grace, be detacted and vanish away.”
The 1921 journalist telling us about Scot adds:
“Alas! For the doughty Reginald, his hope of the passing of such illusions in a short time was many, many long years from realisation… it was that statute of James I that was responsible for the long-continued belief in witchcraft.”
I admire Reginald Scot’s attitude – we are not fearful of pixies and goblins because we believe they are real; instead the reason we dislike them so much is because they are the antithesis of Jesus’ way [we should love other people, NOT try to trick them, and trip them up!], and the IDEA of their existence causes fear, and was used to persecute people who didn’t fit the mould of mainstream society. Getting to know Jesus would both wash away these superstitious fears, and remove the scape-goating of the vulnerable.
Then, if we skip forward in time, English theatre historian, Michael Booth, states:
“The acceptance and rapid growth of fairyland as a fit subject matter for literature, painting, and the stage from the 1820s to the 1840s and its survival until at least the First World War is one of the most remarkable phenomena of 19th-century culture.” 144
Fairies and pixies were now accepted and admired! So much so, that one of Queen Victoria’s Royal yachts was called “Fairy”144a, and Prime Minister, Disraeli, wrote and thanked the Queen for her “Faery gift”, in the manner of Queen Titania, of snowdrops.144b
Here is Mr. Puca on a Peak (a high point) in the Downs (grass covered low hills), with a Pig, looking at a Pook (haycock) and staying away from the Pox! 144d
If “Poke-” potentially coming from pixies is an issue for some Christians, hopefully they can take comfort from the fact that, even if some people choose to associate the name with supernatural folklore, there is no conclusive proof that the origins of the name “Pokesdown” stem from pixies/fairies/witches/goblins. It’s just as likely to have come from someone’s surname, or the local dialect for “haycock”, or stem from “peak’s down” where “peak” means “high point” in the downs, or possibly from when pigs used to be kept on the downs, or maybe from a period when Pokesdown was used as a holding area for people with the pox. And if the name DID come from pixies, the pixies in question may have been, as archaeologist Calkin suggests, a “folk memory” of Pokesdown’s earliest Bronze Age inhabitants. Or a gassy, chemical, glow-in-the-dark134b, and not a (made-up) supernatural being out to cause trouble.
“…there is no evidence that [Puck] visited the top of Pokesdown Hill…” ~ Bournemouth Guardian, Saturday 20 October 1906.144c
The copy and paste citation for this page:
The History of Rosebery Park Baptist Church and Pokesdown – Pokesdown: the name, Page 6. Author: Michelle Fogg. Date: May 2022. Url: https://roseberypark.org/history/pokesdown-the-name-6/
Rosebery Park Baptist Church, 812-814 Christchurch Road, between Boscombe and Pokesdown, Bournemouth, BH7 6DF
Young records that though the new Urban District Council discussed changing the name, and took the poll in 1896,
“the proposed change of name to Pinecliffe was not approved by the Hants County Council, who felt that there was not sufficient concurrence of opinion to justify the change of name, and so the matter was dropped. It is curious that the word Pokesdown should raise such dislike, so that even at the present time [1988] many would object to saying that they live in Pokesdown”.137b2
Changing the name of Pokesdown Station to Southbourne didn’t go ahead because “there were objections from a postal point of view” and a “great diversity of opinion on the matter”.137c
Bridget Baldwin’s ‘Historical Guide to St James the Greater, Pokesdown’, includes the information that in early 1931 “the Ecclesiastical Commissioners [Church of England] were asked if All Saints Church, [Oxford Avenue] Pokesdown could become All Saints Church, West Southbourne.” Baldwin describes All Saints as the “newly-built church set in an area of wealthy householders” as opposed to “the ageing Church of St James set in a poor, working-class area”. The Ecclesiastical Commissioners replied that they did not have the authority to change the name to West Southbourne.138a
Tony Crawley’s 1963 article on Pokesdown starts by saying:
“Pokesdown conjures up many pictures in people’s minds. It’s Little Pokesdown to many – unfair really, as it’s a widespread, bustling area of industry and social life. It’s the place where the trains don’t stop – to those who are glad they don’t. And, let’s be honest, to the majority, it’s the subject of ridicule in many a joke. Example: Q: Where are you spending your holiday? A: Pokesdown by the sea. And so on. It goes without saying, these ideas are wrong.”139
The copy and paste citation for this page:
The History of Rosebery Park Baptist Church and Pokesdown – Pokesdown: the name, Page 5. Author: Michelle Fogg. Date: May 2022. Url: https://roseberypark.org/history/pokesdown-the-name-5/
The History of Rosebery Park Baptist Church and Pokesdown – Pokesdown: the name, Page 4. Author: Michelle Fogg. Date: May 2022. Url: https://roseberypark.org/history/pokesdown-the-name-4/
Rosebery Park Baptist Church, 812-814 Christchurch Road, between Boscombe and Pokesdown, Bournemouth, BH7 6DF
Did you know there’s a ‘Pokesdown Song’, from 1929-39, by Cumberland Clark?!
Pokesdown, on the Christchurch Road, has grown a lot of late, With the populace increasing at a very rapid rate. It’s a suburb now of Bournemouth, and a pleasant neighbourhood; It is laid out very nicely, and the architecture’s good. It once was known as “Puck’s Down,” in the happy long ago, Suggesting scenes of fairyland, where sweet romances grow; But of gorgeous wooded scenery poor Pokesdown is bereft, And I’m very much afraid there can’t be many fairies left.
Yet I call to mind the Pokesdown Wood; in memory I see its grace and charm, which some while back brought happiness to me. I have lingered in its shadows, mid a wealth of trees and flowers, And communing there with Nature, I have passed some happy hours. There were banks of moss and lichen, every kind of luscious growth; There were violets and anemones, a plenitude of both; And the sunshine glinting through the trees and brightening their green, Made a picture for the gods, a splendid transformation scene.
Where the wood was once a glory, there are houses now and streets; And there’s nothing much that’s sylvan in the scenery one meets. In my leisure moments often, since the site was built upon, I have wondered, rather sadly, where the fairies have all gone. Does it bring the fairies sorrow? Does it do them any good, When the builder’s in possession, and they’re exiled from their wood? Do they whisper farewells to us when at last they have to go? I have wondered, but I don’t suppose that I shall ever know.137
Christchurch Road, Pokesdown, looking east from Parkwood Road. The image used for the sign now on Pokesdown Green! Source: front cover of John Young’s booklet ‘A History of Pokesdown: Part 2, The Town’. Postcard is date stamped 1908.
Sign on Pokesdown Green, next to the Bell Inn. Photo taken 9th March 2021 for RPBC.
What’s wrong with the name “Pokesdown”?
“Some inhabitants have begotten a fancy that their locality suffers through a name they have got to believe is deficient in euphony and attractiveness; others declare the place is without a ‘down’, and are gulled by the far-fetched association of ‘pokes’ with ‘pigs’; others continue to love the old name…” ~ Christchurch Times, 29 August 1896137a
A debate about the purported lowly reputation of Pokesdown, and/or the unattractiveness of the name “Pokesdown”, has been going on for the past one hundred and thirty years! This has led some locals, businesses and estate agents to claim their properties are in Southbourne, West Southbourne, Boscombe East, or some other district name instead -because they feel that sounds better- and a repeated return to discussions about whether the name, of the area and/or the Station, should be changed altogether.
The “Pine-” based names made sense at the time because “a considerable area of Pokesdown had been planted with pine trees early in the 19th century, including much of the land along the overcliff”.137b
The History of Rosebery Park Baptist Church and Pokesdown – Pokesdown: the name, Page 3. Author: Michelle Fogg. Date: May 2022. Url: https://roseberypark.org/history/pokesdown-the-name-3/
Rosebery Park Baptist Church, 812-814 Christchurch Road, between Boscombe and Pokesdown, Bournemouth, BH7 6DF
But why would people be “seeing”, or thinking about, pixies/puck/pooka specifically in Pokesdown??!
Being “pixie-led” (or “piskie-led”) refers to being mis-led, lost in familiar surroundings, losing time, never arriving at your destination. Such as what happens if you spot a light in the dark of night, somewhere there are no sources of manufactured light about, and head towards it, thinking the light is guiding you to a safe place…. But the light keeps moving, and in trying to follow it, you end up more lost than ever.134a
I feel like I’m being pixie-led, trying to back-trace the stories behind the theories of the origins of the name “Pokesdown” following paths here, there, and everywhere, and never reaching a definitive conclusion!
Those wispy lights, spotted on commons and moors at night, are thought to be the product of gases produced by organic decay, and this is not a “modern” interpretation. In 1596 Ludwig Lavater wrote a chapter called “many naturall things are taken to be ghoasts” which included reference to Willo-the-Wisps.134b “Visual and perceptual illusions of motion”134c also need to be factored in.
In Welsh folklore, this “fairy fire” is carried by a puca; in the Devon and Cornwall traditions the “pixie light” is carried by a pixie.134b The 19th century-coined serious term for this phenomena is “Ignis Fatuus” which is Latin for “Fool’s Fire”.134c
An engraving by Josiah Wood Whymper, published in 1849. Source: Science Museum Group.
Jefferey Lindell at the Indiana University Folklore Institute has compiled a list of names used to describe this same thing, and just in English there are 250 of them! They include: Will-o’-the-wisp; Kitty with the wisp; Kitty Candlestick; Jack-o’-lantern; Hob-with-a-lantern; Hob Puck; Devil’s lantern; and all of the pixie and puck variations.134c
A Pokesdown local, farmer Richard Dale, who was born in 1794, recorded his memories in the booklet Reminiscences of Stourfield – Stourfield being an early part of the development of Pokesdown. In Reminiscences he says about seeing134d
“what was commonly called Kit Candlesticks” which he had the good sense not to try and follow “as I have been told by many they had been led into difficulties and lost their way from attempting to follow, supposing that they were going in the direction of some house. Many people were kept riding about all night after them.”
I haven’t found a Bournemouth or Christchurch newspaper reference to Kit Candlesticks, but I did find an 1847 Wilts & Gloucestershire Standard article, quoting a description from 1691:134e
“Ignis fatuus, called by the vulgar Kit of the Candlestick, is not very rare on our downs about Michaelmas.”
The 1847 journalist then adds his own note to the end of this: “These ignes fatui, or Jack-o’ lanthorns, as they are popularly called, are frequently seen in low boggy grounds. In my boyish days I was often terrified by stories of their leading travellers astray, and fascinating them.- J.B.”
To know that “Ignis Fatuus” was a familiar enough sight in the Pokesdown area for it to have a name it was commonly known by – “Kit Candlesticks” – adds credence to the theory of “Pokes-“ coming from puca/pixie/puck.
The Complete Book of Devils and Demons has these notions mixed-in together in its introduction to Minor Supernatural Creatures of Britain:134f
Puck, Robin Goodfellow, Queen Mab, Tom Thumb, and many equally fanciful creatures who have not been given personal names, such as Kit with The Candlestick, Hop o’My Thumb, bugs, bogeymen, bull- beggars, fetches, sylens, firedrakes, pookas …. The pooka in Mary Chase’s play Harvey is a six-foot rabbit invisible to everyone except Elwood P. Dowel and a fine farce it makes. Some of these creatures were considered malicious, some not.
An alternative explanation for the association with fairies or pixies is, as Calkin explains, the theory that
“fairy tales are often based on ‘folk memories’ concerning some previous race which has since disappeared. It is therefore possible that the name [Pokesdown] preserves an ancient tradition about the very people whose graves have come to light during this present century” – by which he means the Bronze Age burials discovered in the Pokesdown area in the first half of the twentieth century.134g
In 1906 Rudyard Kipling published a book called “Puck of Pook’s Hill”!135 I wonder if that, in part, helped cement the connection in people’s minds between “Pokesdown” and pixies/fairies?! A Bournemouth Guardian article from 1906 mentions this book, locals bumpy relationship with the name “Pokesdown”, and a theory that the name was something to do with “pigs”:
“Pokesdown” is a name of doubtful origin… Examples of earlier uses or forms of “Pokesdown” would help toward a more definite pronouncement but in the meanwhile the name should be treasured as one of the few within the borough boundary which long ante-date enclosure.136
The copy and paste citation for this page:
The History of Rosebery Park Baptist Church and Pokesdown – Pokesdown: the name, Page 2. Author: Michelle Fogg. Date: May 2022. Url: https://roseberypark.org/history/pokesdown-the-name-2/
Rosebery Park Baptist Church, 812-814 Christchurch Road, between Boscombe and Pokesdown, Bournemouth, BH7 6DF
The British Newspaper Archive has digitised copies of The Bournemouth Graphic newspaper from 1902 to 1933, and also from 1926 to 1937 under the title, The Bournemouth & Southampton Graphic.
An example of one of several notifications of the amount of money donated by Rosebery Park Baptist Church to the Wounded Soldiers and Sailors Fund, during the First World War:
Rosebery Park Baptist Church, 812-814 Christchurch Road, between Boscombe and Pokesdown, Bournemouth, BH7 6DF. Also online.
The British Newspaper Archive has digitised copies of The Bournemouth Graphic newspaper from 1902 to 1933, and also from 1926 to 1937 under the title, The Bournemouth & Southampton Graphic.
The sad notice of the funeral of Mrs Eleanor Perkins, January 1915, wife of Rev. Perkins, the Pastor of Rosebery Park Baptist Church:
Rosebery Park Baptist Church, 812-814 Christchurch Road, between Boscombe and Pokesdown, Bournemouth, BH7 6DF. Also online.
The British Newspaper Archive has digitised copies of The Bournemouth Daily Echo newspaper from 1900 to 1910. It was established in 1900 with its first issue published on 20th August 1900.
Here is an advert for the service times at the Rosebery Park Baptist Chapel on the corner of Morley and Harcourt Roads:
