Among Bournemouth's largest patches of green, Kings Park spreads across roughly 86 acres of sports grounds, playing fields and open land on the town's eastern flank, within Boscombe. Calling it a single park undersells it, this is more of a compact sporting quarter, with Vitality Stadium, AFC Bournemouth's home, and the running track used by Bournemouth Athletic Club both inside its boundary, plus calmer areas suited to a picnic or a stroll.
A royal name from 1902
Back in May 1902, Bournemouth's council renamed one of its commons "King's Park" in honour of King Edward VII's coronation, giving the park the name it still carries; a neighbouring common was renamed Queen's Park in the same move. A single long-established charitable trust still looks after Kings Park today, alongside Queens, Meyrick and Redhill parks and Seafield Gardens, evidence of just how much green space Bournemouth set aside for the public more than a hundred years back.
Sport, play and a wilder corner
Away from the stadium and athletics track, the park offers an indoor bowling green as well as an outdoor one, a cricket field with its own pavilion and café, a skate park, and two areas built for children's play. The free, weekly Bournemouth parkrun also begins here. Beyond the sporting pitches, the Kings Park Conservation Area brings a rougher character, unpaved meadow, heathland and a modest wooded patch left largely wild, giving common lizards, slowworms and other creatures somewhere to shelter.
Getting in costs nothing and the gates stay open all year, with free parking close by. When you need refreshments, Kings Park Cafe is positioned right next to the athletics track, and our guide to things to do in Bournemouth has further ideas nearby.
