Parish Profile
St.Peter's and St.Osmund's Parkstone
With St.Mary's Branksea

In Victorian times, Parkstone was the area on the edge of Poole where the wealthy merchants of the town lived. Poole itself is the second largest natural harbour in the world and in 1998 it celebrated the 750th anniversary of its charter. In 1833 the church of St.Peter's Parkstone was built. The parish had about 1,000 people and stretched down to Sandbanks. By 1870, the parish had become deeply influenced by the Oxford Movement and the decision was made to build a bigger church. The church they built took decades to finish and is one of the largest churches in the diocese, complete with a throne for the bishop. At the same time, the owner of Brownsea Island built a parish church on the island (in the process it bankrupted him). By the turn of the century the people of Parkstone had moved their sights up the hill and decided to rebuild the tin hut at St.Osmund's and replace it with a massive Italian Basilica. This was so that the servants had a decent church of their own. In time, these three churches came to form the Lower Parkstone Team Ministry.

Since those days the rich and wealthy have continued to move outwards, away from the centre of Poole, and the Lower Parkstone Team is part of the urban sprawl of Poole without the great wealth it once had. In Springfield Road, near St.Peter's church, there are four detached houses marked No.42, which demonstrates the enormous size of house which once could be found in the parish, most of which are now gone. Housing is varied from small 1920 terraced council housing to new council house developments to sizeable private houses and a number of modern(ish) private estates. There are a number of small shops in the parish, especially along the south side of Ashley Road and the shops around the Lower Parkstone "Village Green". The Civic Centre of Poole is in St.Peter's parish, as is almost all of Poole Park. There is a small amount of industry, although most of the industry is in the next parish. There are quite a large number of nursing homes. Baden Powell St.Peter's Middle School is a large (VC) school of 600 children in St.Peter's parish, of which the Rector is the elected Chairman of Governors. There are also two private junior schools in the parish. There is a primary school in St.Osmund's parish. One of the major Yacht Clubs of the harbour is situated in St.Peter's Parish.

Historically, St.Peter's was always very much a parish church and it still is very much involved in the community. Many major services are held there and for some of the school Christmas services 1,200 people are crammed into the building. St.Osmund's, on the other hand, developed as an eclectic Anglo-Catholic church, with less impact on the immediate local community. At both churches the liturgy used the English Missal and, within living memory, the liturgy at St.Osmund's was in Latin. 

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