Branksome lies between Bournemouth and Poole amid a large residential area, once it was a village with two separate communities divided by the railway one side being known as The Park and the other area was mostly terraced houses built around the local gasworks but even then it had its own beauty spots such as Coy Pond. The Park estate was once in the possession of C Packe the member of Parliament for Prestwold in Leicestershire and he built a plain Tudor house here in 1853.The drive up to the house is what is now Branksome Avenue and the Lodge at Wesbourne was the entrance to the Park.

But progress has changed all that and a new traffic scheme and large blocks of office accommodation has been introduced to the area This was known as County Gates and it was the border between Hampshire and Dorset before the 1974 boundary changes.

The Avenue was turned into a wide boulevard flanked on either side by mansions and it was also renowned for its criminal element as there were a lot of rhododendron bushes here which were perfect cover for muggers who used to hide in them ready to prey on the unwary, nowadays they are kept to about three feet high.

Branksome just after WWII was known for the murder of Doreen Marshall who was killed by Neville Heath, and acres of the Dene had to be levelled for a police search for cues. Today a car park has been built here. A bridge is over Dene Chine here and it is on the spot where Winston Churchill fell as a child and he was in danger of losing his life.

The beaches with their lines of colourful beach huts is now under the care of Poole Corporation.

Branksome Urban District  became a part of Poole in 1905 and there is still a bit of local rivalry between Poole and Bournemouth which has been going on for many years and many of the Branksome residents insisted of putting Bournemouth on their addresses instead of Poole.