Shelley Park sits on a quiet rise above Boscombe, its lawns and paths tracing the grounds of a house with one of the more remarkable literary pedigrees on the south coast. Most visitors come today for the playground and tennis court; few realise they're walking the former estate of the family behind Frankenstein and one of the great Romantic poets.
History
The house at the heart of the park began as Boscombe Cottage, built in 1801. In 1848–49, Sir Percy Florence Shelley, the only child of Percy Bysshe Shelley to survive to adulthood, and of Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein, bought the cottage and its estate, intending to rebuild it as a home for his ailing mother. Mary died in 1851, before the work was finished, but Sir Percy and his wife, Lady Jane Shelley, went on to live there for the rest of their lives, renaming it Boscombe Manor.
In 1866, Sir Percy, by all accounts an enthusiastic amateur theatrical, had a private theatre built within the grounds, staging plays for audiences of up to 300 that helped fund local health causes. Guests over the years included Robert Louis Stevenson, who lived nearby, and the actor Henry Irving. More curiously still, Percy Bysshe Shelley's heart, reputedly saved from his funeral pyre on an Italian beach in 1822, was kept at the manor in an urn until 1889, when it was finally buried with Sir Percy in the family tomb at St Peter's Church in Bournemouth town centre.
After Sir Percy's death in 1889, the manor passed through several uses, a girls' school, a wartime Home Guard post, and Bournemouth's art college until 1998, before being restored in the 2000s. The house is now a medical centre, while the historic theatre reopened as the working Shelley Theatre.
Visiting
The park itself is free and open every day, with a children's playground, a tennis court and paved paths that make it a pleasant stop on a walk around Boscombe. It sits close to the seafront and the Bournemouth Coast Path, a short walk from Boscombe Pier and the beach. It's a quiet, unassuming green space with an outsized story attached, one of several ways the Shelley name still surfaces around Bournemouth, alongside The Mary Shelley pub in the town centre named for the same family. Explore more of the area in our guide to things to do in Bournemouth.