Located on Albert Road close to the town centre, it was the first Roman Catholic church built in Bournemouth and is part of the Diocese of Portsmouth.
Prior to becoming a desirable resort for bathing and taking the sea air, Bournemouth was no more than a small hamlet at the mouth of the River Bourne.
[1][2] Assembly Rooms behind the Belle Vue Hotel on the present site of the Pavilion Theatre were used at different times for Catholic and Congregationalist services and as a synagogue.
The first recorded Mass was in 1861–62 when Mrs Washington Hibbert of Dover Street, London, spent the winter and established a private chapel at the hotel.
In 1870 a small wooden church opened on the present Sacred Heart site which was bought with the help of Lady Herbert of Lea and Mr O’Connell.
Aisles and the present tower were added and the church was solemnly opened on 5 February 1875, with a blessing by Dr James Dannell, Bishop of Southwark.
Following the creation of the new diocese of Portsmouth in 1882[6] enlargement work began in 1888 and more actively from April 1896 under the parish priest Fr Cooney SJ and the architect A.J.Pilkington.
[7] The completed church was blessed at a midnight Mass on 31 December 1900 also celebrating the start of the new century; in this process a new nave and clerestory, a confessional and work room block and an extension to the house were constructed and changes made to the Albert Road facade.
The style was based on early French Gothic as in Clutton's original design, faced externally with Swanage stone with freestone dressings.
Her daughter the Archduchess Marie Valerie attended 8 am Sunday mass at Sacred Heart; the Empress stayed in her hotel with a cold.
In 1873 she founded St Joseph's Home in Madeira Road for poor Catholics from London suffering from tuberculosis, supported by other ladies including the then Duchess of Norfolk.
Father William Anderton, former secretary to his uncle Cardinal Henry Manning, spent a year c1876 at Sacred Heart Church.
Paul Verlaine the French poet who worked as an art master at St Aloysius School from 1876 to 1877 visited the presbytery and went with his pupils to the church.
His art patron friend Marc-Andre Raffalovich arranged for Father David Bearne from Sacred Heart to visit and Beardsley attended when his health allowed.
In 1901 Adeline Sergeant the novelist and Fabian, moved to Agincourt House, Albert Road, and attended Sacred Heart Church.
On 7 March 1922 a memorial in the town hall to officers of Bournemouth Council in the First World War was dedicated by the rector of Sacred Heart who was the chaplain to the then mayor, a Catholic; the council vetoed a vicar and Congregational minister from taking part, so the Catholic acted alone: “The father is to be congratulated on handling a difficult situation with courtesy and prudence”.
J R R Tolkien and his wife Edith took regular holidays at the Miramar Hotel, Bournemouth, from the 1950s and attended Sunday Masses at Sacred Heart.
In 2005 on the 50th anniversary of publication of The Lord of the Rings their daughter Priscilla attended a Mass at Sacred Heart and read one of her father's poems.