How shifting spit of land became millionaire's row
How shifting spit of land became millionaire's row
Sat, August 22, 2026 at 6:15 AM UTC
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A narrow sandy spit extending into the mouth of Poole Harbour is home to some of the most expensive homes in England, with its own millionaire's row of waterfront properties.
But the affluent Sandbanks peninsula was once a wild place of shifting sand dunes.
So how did it become the exclusive and expensive area it is today?
Radio Solent Steve Harris has been delving into its history with Jeremy Waters, who arrived in a very different Sandbanks as a boy in the 1950s.
When Waters moved there with his family as a child, the peninsula was only about half a century on from its owner Lord Wimborne selling it to the newly formed Poole Harbour Commissioners in 1896.
The surveyor and local historian said Sandbanks was acquired by an Act of Parliament because Wimborne did not want to foot the bill for the sea defences needed to stop the sea breaking through.
A borough engineer had warned that if groynes - barriers built out into the sea from the beach - were not put in place and other sea defence were not improved, "the sand banks would become an island", he said.
The first auction of land plots took place in 1896.
"Into that Sandbanks, came the Andreae family," said Waters.
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"The family were German bankers, Lutherans, and one of the brothers, who was a great sailor and a member of the Royal Yacht Squadron, came into Poole with his yacht and found Sandbanks."
'Monopoly'
Dr Edward Andreae first rented a cottage there in 1919 before he "started to play a bit of Monopoly with Sandbanks, snapping up parcels of land and building homes for his eight children", he said.
"Of course, this peninsula being what it is, many of those properties have been sold now a century later, with houses demolished and replaced, but one patch of Andreae land remains."
With his "surveying hat on", Waters said he estimates the property, with a "staff cottage, a tennis court, and a sort of beach house on the frontage" sitting on about one acre, is worth up to £20m today.
It is perhaps the last undeveloped chunk of Sandbanks.
"I suspect it will never be built on," said Waters. "It is held in this family trust, which now has over 100 members.
"The family all meet down here in August and this is the focus for that meeting.
"The children sail and potter on the sands, and they still enjoy what Sandbanks used to offer, which is sun, sand and sea.
"I think it's a joyous relic of Sandbanks, as it used to be, and I admire enormously the fact that they don't want to cash it in."
Related Links
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Legal advice backs Sandbanks beach access, group says
'Nobody owns the sand': The 12-metre fence dividing an affluent beach town
Related internet links
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Poole Harbour Commissioners
Source: “AOL Money”
