Alum Chine is where Bournemouth’s sand runs out to the west. A wooded ravine drops through the cliff and opens onto the promenade, so you arrive at the sea through trees rather than across a car park, and the beach waiting at the bottom is wide, pale and noticeably emptier than the stretches either side of the two piers. It is the family end of the bay. It is also the end that most people staying in the centre never quite walk to, which is rather the point of coming here.
How the chine was cut
A chine is a coastal gorge: a small stream cutting back through soft sandstone and clay as the cliff line retreats, deepening year on year until it reaches the sea as a ravine. Poole Bay has a run of them — Branksome, Middle, Durley, Boscombe — and Alum Chine is the largest in Bournemouth. A suspension bridge has spanned it since the early twentieth century. Robert Louis Stevenson lived at Skerryvore, a house at the head of the chine, which was destroyed in a bombing raid on Bournemouth in November 1940 and demolished afterwards.
What to expect on the sand
The beach is broad and shelves gently, with beach huts in a line behind it and a pirate-themed play park set back from the sand. Families dominate, particularly in the morning. Nothing here is working hard to entertain you the way the seafront at the piers does — there is a kiosk, a restaurant, a garden and a great deal of sky. In August it fills like everywhere else, but it stays walkable for longer in the day.
Swimming and lifeguard cover
RNLI lifeguards patrol Alum Chine daily from 10am to 6pm across the core of the season, which in 2026 runs from 23 May to 6 September. Outside those weeks, and outside those hours, there is no cover at all — worth remembering on a beach that looks this calm. Swim between the red and yellow flags, and read the board at the beach office before you go in rather than after.
Facilities on the front
Toilets, showers and drinking water sit at the top of the beach, with a wheelchair-accessible unisex toilet on RADAR key access next to the play park. There is a beach office, a refreshment kiosk selling ice cream, and a restaurant on the front itself. A dog wash is plumbed into the seafront here, which is not something every stretch of this coast can offer.
Dogs
Dogs are kept off the main beach from 1 May to 30 September, and must be on a lead on the promenade, the paths and the zig-zags all year round. The western section — from beach hut 2060 along towards Branksome Chine beach office — stays open to dogs throughout the year, which makes this one of the more useful beaches in Bournemouth if you are here in summer with one. From October to April the restriction lifts across the bay. The signage on the prom is the version that counts.
Getting there and parking
Alum Chine car park sits above the beach and is the nearest place to leave a car. On foot it is roughly 1.2 miles west of Bournemouth Pier, about twenty minutes along the promenade and flat the whole way. Morebus runs along the clifftop road above, and the seafront land train works this end of the front in summer. The nearest railway stations, Parkstone and Bournemouth, are both around three miles away.
What is nearby
Alum Chine Tropical Gardens climb the ravine directly behind the beach and are worth ten minutes on the way back up. Durley Chine is the next beach east and a good deal busier; keep going and you reach Bournemouth Beach proper. Up the hill inland, Westbourne has the shops and cafés this end of the seafront does without. Our beaches guide sets out the rest of the bay.
