Snaps of Bournemouth

This rare and remarkable short film, made by Harry Guermonprez, shows a visit to 1920s Bournemouth - all dressed in trench coats and cloche hats

This short film from Harry Guermonprez starts with a woman in a leather trench coat and cloche hat walking towards the camera. She is joined on a seafront walk by other members of the party, against a backdrop of cliffs and beach huts. She then passes through a turnstile onto the pier where the camera capture views of an out of season Bournemouth beach. The woman takes a photo with a camera before climbing up cliffs to the west of the pier.

Local historian and naturalist, Harry Guermonprez, who later went on to become co-founder of the Bognor Regis Film Society in 1938, was a photographer by trade. Beginning in Bognor Regis, where he managed a chemists and photography shop, he moved to Chichester, where he set up Chichester Photographic Services. After the Second World War he photographed scenes in and around the historic city, many of them for the Chichester Observer, the local newspaper. His photographic collection, consisting of hundreds of glass plate negatives, is now held at the West Sussex Record Office in Chichester.