The service is at the Cenotaph in the Central Gardens at 10.55am on Sunday 8 November, after a 10.35am parade. Three roads by the Town Hall shut from 9am.

Remembrance Sunday falls on Sunday 8 November 2026. Bournemouth’s service is at the Cenotaph in the Central Gardens, and it starts at 10.55am, with the parade setting off twenty minutes earlier.

The part that catches out drivers is the closure. Braidley Road, Bourne Avenue and Avenue Road shut to vehicles from 9am until 1pm, which takes out the roads either side of the Town Hall for the whole morning.

BCP Council has not yet published its 2026 arrangements. Everything below is what the council itself published for 2023 and 2025, and those two years matched each other exactly, down to the closure times. We will update this page when the 2026 notice lands.

The timings, as the council has published them

The BCP Council notice for 2025, published on Monday 3 November 2025:

  • 10.35am. The parade starts from Bournemouth Tennis Courts. It is “led by the Salvation Army and BCCF Marching Bands”.
  • 10.55am. The service begins at the “Cenotaph in the Central Gardens”.
  • 11am. The two-minute silence.

The council’s 2023 notice gave the same 10.55am start at the “War Memorial in the Central Gardens”, and said the parade was “led by The Salvation Army Band who will play the bugle”. The timings have not moved in three years.

The road closures

Both council notices carry the same line: “Braidley Road, Bourne Avenue and Avenue Road will be closed to vehicles from 9am until 1pm.”

Those three roads wrap around the Town Hall and the top of the Central Gardens. Bourne Avenue is the one most people are actually trying to use, because it links the Wessex Way end of town to the Square.

We checked the Public Notice Portal on 6 September 2026 and no 2026 temporary traffic order for the event had been advertised. That is normal at this point in the year. The order is usually published in the days before the event, alongside the council’s news article. Our Bournemouth roadworks and travel page tracks what is actually live on the network.

Parking, honestly

There is no event parking and no park and ride for this. The closures do not touch the multi-storeys, so the practical answer is to use a town centre car park and walk in, then avoid the three closed roads on the way out. Charges, opening hours and the 24-hour car parks are on our parking in Bournemouth page.

If you are walking, the Cenotaph sits above the Bourne stream on the Town Hall side of the gardens, a few minutes from the Square.

Armistice Day is the Wednesday

Remembrance Sunday is defined by the Royal British Legion as “the second Sunday in November”, which puts it on 8 November in 2026. Armistice Day itself is Wednesday 11 November 2026, with the two-minute silence at 11am.

The two are separate. The parade and the wreath laying happen on the Sunday.

The other services across the BCP area

From the council’s 2025 notice, for the Sunday:

  • Poole. Service at the War Memorial in Poole Park at 10.50am, parade from 10.20am. “Poole Park will be closed to vehicles between 7am-1pm.” In 2023 the same closure ran from 7.30am.
  • Christchurch. Wreath laying at 10.15am, then a service in the Priory from 10.50am. The parade runs “between Bargates and Christchurch Priory via the High Street”.
  • Broadstone. 10.30am to 11.35am at the Broadstone Park War Memorial, with the parade beginning at Tudor Road and going along Dunyeats Road and Ridgeway.

In 2023 Poole also held a Saturday service, at Beales in the Dolphin Shopping Centre at 10.55am on 11 November. That building has since changed hands, and the 2025 notice does not repeat it, so do not assume it runs.

The night before

The town’s bonfire night display at Littledown is on Saturday 7 November 2026, the evening before the parade. Times, prices and the cash-only gate are on our Bournemouth fireworks page.

What is still to come

  • BCP Council’s 2026 notice, with the confirmed times and the closure. On the last two years’ timing, expect it in the first week of November.
  • The temporary traffic order on the Public Notice Portal, usually the same week.
  • The name of the officiating minister and the parade order, which the council does not publish in advance.

Sources