Audioguides Poole

Poole Harbour is one of the largest natural harbours in the world, a shallow inland sea covering nearly 40 square kilometres connected to the English Channel by a narrow entrance. The harbour gives Poole a geographical character unlike any other town on the Dorset coast, with tidal mudflats, wooded islands, and the exclusive sandy peninsula of Sandbanks projecting into the water to create some of England's most expensive coastal real estate. The old town of Poole clusters around the quayside at the harbour's edge, with a medieval merchant's house, the Tudor-fronted Scaplen's Court, and a working waterfront that still mixes leisure boats with commercial fishing.

Brownsea Island, in the middle of the harbour and reachable by regular ferry from Poole Quay, is the site where Robert Baden-Powell held his first experimental camp for boys in August 1907, planting the seed that grew into the worldwide Scout movement.

The island is now owned by the National Trust and has a large red squirrel population, woodland walks, and the peacocks that have wandered its glades since Victorian times. Poole's proximity to the Jurassic Coast, the 95-mile stretch of World Heritage shoreline that includes the natural arch of Durdle Door and the chalk stacks of Old Harry Rocks, makes it a natural base for exploring one of England's most dramatic coastlines.