Page 3 – Pokesdown: the name – What’s wrong with it? What could it be changed to?

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

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 1896^137a

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