As the school holidays draw closer it always brings thoughts of my own childhood summer holidays. I was very fortunate that my grandparents had retired to a little town in the New Forest and every summer until I was twelve we went and stayed with them. My sister and I spent much of our time playing on the beach at Boscombe, swimming in with the waves in the sea. I returned to Boscombe whilst on a holiday in the New Forest about six years ago, to show my own children the beach I loved as a child. However I was deeply disappointed to find the beach littered with cigarette ends and plastic bottles, the pier dilapitated and The Overstrand closed. This was not the place I loved as a child.
However I read two years ago in the newspapers about the regeneration project of my beloved childhood holiday location. Boscombe, just down the coastal road from Bournemouth, has recently been subject to a £11 million makeover project, including The Overstrand becoming the best beach huts ever, also known as 'Super Surf Pods' and Europes first artifical Surf Reef has been built. With the design duo of Wayne and Gerardine Hemingway, of Hemingway Design involved in the design of the new 'Super Surf Pods' you can be sure they are going to be something special. The Overstrand was built in the1950's and been left dilapidated for several years before this project. It is now an amazing collection of very cool beach huts, with some of the pods being sold on a 25 year lease and the remaining pods are available to hire from the Council. There are a collection of penthouses, double sized and single huts all with interiors designed by Wayne & Gerrardine Hemingway. Each beach hut has bespoke seaside furniture, including director's chairs, deckchairs, a windbreak and a wooden table and then there will be a different mural on one wall in each of the huts.
I am so pleased that Boscombe has been given a second chance to be a fantastic holiday location again. This was where I first fell in love with the sea, where I decided that when I grew up I would live by the sea. I am yet to return to Boscombe to see the fantastic work of the Hemingways and the whole regeneration project but the pictures I have seen look amazing. So do you have a beach that makes you think of childhood holidays? Would it be a disappointment if you returned now or a day filled with happy memories?
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