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Alum Chine

Coastal gorge in Bournemouth, England

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Source updated July 2, 2026

Image credit is listed at the end of this article.

Alum Chine is the largest chine in Bournemouth, England. The gorge was crossed by a suspension bridge by the early part of the twentieth century.

01History

In early maps the place was often transposed with Durley Chine.

During the Bournemouth Blitz in the Second World War, Robert Louis Stevenson's house Skerryvore, at the head of the chine, was severely damaged by bombs during a destructive and lethal raid on Bournemouth on the night of 15-16 November 1940. Despite a campaign to save it, the building was demolished.

02Namesakes

The chine gives its name to a number of local features, Alum Chine Beach being the most obvious, and to an area of the town and a telephone exchange.

A ship, the Alum Chine, destroyed in a dynamite explosion in 1913 was also named after the chine.

Watch videos about Alum ChineExplainers and documentaries on YouTube (opens in a new tab)

Sources and credits

This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Alum Chine”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.

Images, from Wikimedia Commons:

Westbourne, looking down on Alum Chine - geograph.org.uk - 972216.jpg by Chris Downer, CC BY-SA 2.0
The life of Robert Louis Stevenson for boys and girls (1915) (14778510921).jpg by Internet Archive Book Images, No restrictions

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