London, Cambridge, York, Edinburgh, Stratford — the usual whistlestop tour of the United Kingdom may give U.S. visitors enough to whet their appetite for a return visit (if the weather hasn’t put them off) but then where?

Just 100 miles southwest of London lies the seaside resort town of Bournemouth, Thomas Hardy’s “Mediterranean lounging place on the English Channel.” It is as good a base as any for touring southern England.

Situated on a wide, semicircular, south-facing bay, with nearly seven miles of 100-foot cliffs overlooking golden, sandy beaches and almost 2,000 acres of beautifully manicured public parks and gardens, it isn’t difficult to see why Bournemouth was the recipient of Britain’s “Resort of the Year” award in 1992 and of the coveted “Britain in Bloom” award in 1991: hanging flower baskets adorn the main shopping streets and lush ornamental gardens accompany the meandering Bourne stream for almost two miles on its journey through the heart of town. The occasional palm tree bears witness to the warming influence of the Gulf Stream, which results in very mild winters and pleasant summers — and a much longer season than most British resorts.

Bournemouth’s motto, “Pulchritudo et salubritas” (Beauty and health), shows that the town originally earned its reputation as a health resort. Over the years the fortuitous combination of balmy sea breezes and the aroma of more than 100,000 pine trees has attracted such notables as Victorian Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli who recuperated at the Royal Bath Hotel and author Robert Louis Stevenson who spent several years there “taking the air.” It was in Bournemouth that he wrote “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” and “Kidnapped.” Stevenson’s house was destroyed by bombs during World War II, but a memorial garden is preserved on the site. The poet Shelley’s heart is buried in the graveyard of St. Peter’s Church, as is his wife, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, the author of “Frankenstein.”

Bournemouth has had a hard time shaking off its sedate bath chair image but has finally succeeded, partly due, no doubt, to its emergence as one of the leading centers of English language tuition among young European and South American students. In high summer, the center of the town resonates with Spanish, Italian, French, German and other languages less easy to discern, giving the place a distinctly continental atmosphere. Lively pavement cafes, night clubs and four theaters (including one at the end of the Pier) give the place a vibrancy that would make the town fathers turn in their graves.

For the more culturally inclined, the town is also home to the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, which, with its young American conductor Andrew Litton, performs Sunday evenings throughout the summer season in the acoustically superb Winter Gardens Concert Hall. The orchestra will be touring the United States throughout 1993.

Surveys show that as many people come to Bournemouth for its shopping facilities as for the beaches. The chic downtown area, recently rendered traffic-free by a controversial “pedestrianization” scheme, contains branches of many of Britain’s chain stores, as well as a local family-run department store, Beales, whose seven floors offer as wide a variety of quality merchandise as any Oxford Street emporium.

A dollar ride on one of the eye-catching yellow double-decker buses will take you to the suburb of Pokesdown, where the 30 or so antique shops that straddle the Christchurch Road provide a wide range of furniture, clocks and watches, objets d’art and other collector’s items, often at more competitive prices than their more famous Brighton counterparts.

Eating out in town ranges from a handful of very expensive French, Italian and other international gourmet restaurants, to a variety of pubs providing simple, hearty English fare, such as steak and kidney pie with chips or “plowman’s lunch” — crusty bread, a slab of cheese and a pickled onion — at low prices. A new fish and chip restaurant, “Chez Fred’s,” has earned national recognition for its version of the English delicacy. By contrast, at the internationally renowned restaurant of the Chewton Glen Hotel, 20 minutes by car from downtown, you might just rub shoulders with the likes of Peter Ustinov (as I did) or Margaret Thatcher. You might also enjoy the food.

But perhaps Bournemouth’s greatest strength as a resort is its location about halfway along the south coast of England. An hour’s ride out of town, by car or bus (local companies Shamrock, Rambler and Excelsior offer numerous excursions daily) will take you to a plethora of fascinating historical sites such as Stonehenge, the Salisbury and Winchester cathedrals, the HMS Victory at Portsmouth, and Longleat House, home of the Marquis of Bath, with its well-known safari park. A short boat ride from the town’s 1,000-foot pier will transport you to the Isle of Wight, Queen Victoria’s holiday favorite, or across the Bay to the quaint seaside town of Swanage.

Fifteen miles to the east, the New Forest’s 90,000 acres of protected wood and heathland offer endless opportunites for walking and riding; to the west, the hilly green patchwork-quilt countryside, stone villages and dramatic coastling of Thomas Hardy’s Wessex offer a glimpse of the long lost rural England of “Far From the Madding Crowd” of “Tess of the d’Urbervilles.” You almost expect to see Alan Bates or Julie Christie popping out from behind the hedgerows.

Closer still, within the Bournemouth conurbation, the much older and proudly individualistic neighboring towns of Poole and Christchurch possess, between them, two fine harbors, a castle, an 11th century Priory Church (the largest Parish Church in England), beautiful sandy beaches and more shopping and sporting opportunities, including salmon fishing.

Because Bournemouth possesses more hotel beds than any other city in the United Kingdom outside of London, the variety of accommodations is immense, from cozy, inexpensive bed and breakfasts on the West Cliff at 10 pounds a night, to the regal surroundings of the five-star Carlton or Royal Bath Hotels at princely prices, not to mention everything else in between.

Bournemouth is an ideal base both for touring central southern England, or as a holiday location in its own right. Its proximity to London and good travel connections with Heathrow and Gatwick airports mean that it is a great place to combine a few days in the capital with a few days to relax, unwind and enjoy some of Britain’s most picturesque countryside and stimulating historical sites.

It also happens to be my hometown.

For more information: Bournemouth Tourist Information Centre, Westover Road, Bournemouth, BH1 2BU, United Kingdom; or British Tourist Authority, 551 Fifth Ave., 7th Floor, New York, N.Y. 10176.

Paul Tarrant is an English Episcopal priest working in Taunton, Mass.