Vintage Photography – Sunny Southsea

Following on from photos of The bandstand and Tennis Courts the other week, here’s another scan from Khalid.

Back before East Jet in the late 1940s, early 1950s people flocked to Southsea seafront. Check the beach huts near Canoe Lake. Dozens of them and the Paddling Pool which is now occupied by the Sealife Centre. Love the little train to the right of the picture. Click for a closer look.

Tags: Architecture, Photography, Seafront, The City, Vintage Portsmouth

Telly Savalas Looks at Portsmouth

There’s more than ‘meats’ the eye to Portsmouth. A city where everyone in the know goes. Classic stuff. Kojak takes time between sucking lollipops and fighting crime to give us the 411 on Portsmouth city through the ages. Love the eclectic soundtrack. Thanks to Harry for posting this up for us in a previous article. Here’s looking at you Portsmouth…

Tags: Telly Savalas Looks at Portsmouth

Vintage Photography – Sunny Southsea

Big thanks to Khalid who sent over these vintage photographs scanned from The Images of Portsmouth (1993). We have a small selection so I’ll put one page up each week.

Love this first shot of the band stand on the common in the 1920s showing how the site was originally used before the Skatepark was built around it in the 70s. So many deckchairs, it must have been big business back then. It’s a shame they didn’t keep the bandstand as it was with the little steps and iron railing. It’s a little different NOW as Marcus’s ariel shot shows. Click the image to see the high res scan up close.

Old Ships and The Point

Continuing from the HMS Vanguard photos from earlier this week, this one shot from above shows the scale of the ship and her guns, which are as big as the pubs! The second photo is of HMS Victorious passing out in the 50s, with the old power station in the background. Hard to believe such a huge, dominating landmark like that is now just a memory.

Click on the images to see larger versions. Photos are taken from the wonderful Portsmouth From The Air book by Anthony Triggs.

Tags: HMS Vanguard, HMS Victorious, Old Portsmouth, The Point

Southsea Rock Gardens circa 1985

More random finds. It’s a shame to say I don’t think I’ve ever seen the Rock gardens looking this nice. Not sure how often upkeep fits into the Council agenda these days. Back in 1985 however it looks amazing. Click the photo for a bigger view.

Photo : Dom Walton

Tags: Southsea Rock Gardens

Vintage Portsmouth & Southsea poster

You know we love a bit of Vintage Portsmouth & Southsea here at Strong Island. Not too much info on this one, perfect for holidays though. The flickr link states the photo of the poster was taken in Eastney, but I’m not sure where.

Via : Bob Franklin

Tags: Southsea Poster

HMS Vanguard (1960)

Man, these photos are pretty damn epic. Both show the HMS Vangaurd that went aground just feet away from alongside the Still & West and Spice Island in 1960.

“On 4 August 1960, when she was to be towed from Portsmouth to the breakers yard at Faslane, Scotland, the whole of the Southsea sea front was packed with people to see her off. As she was being towed towards the harbour entrance, she slewed across the harbour to the Still & West public house and went aground. She was eventually pulled off by tugs and finally made her exit from Portsmouth. Five days later she arrived at Faslane and by the spring of 1962 Vanguard ceased to exist, never having fired her guns in anger.” (from Wikipedia)

It’s also great to see that area of Old Portsmouth in detail from 50 years ago. There is no sea wall in place, some kind of out building on the corner of Spice Island, what looks like early dry dock developments and I love the way Broad Street goes straight in to the drink. See what you can see. Click the images for a much closer look.

Via : Jainbow

Tags: HMS Vanguard (1960)

Hidden Treasures

Steve Bomford gave us the heads up on this wonderful short film made up of old film footage, from the 50s to the 70s, filmed around Portsmouth and Southsea. If you like looking at some vintage Portsmouth and Southsea you will love this (really interesting to see the Guildhall before it was pedestrianised and the buildings were demolished for the council offices).

Vintage Harbour Cruise

We know you all love a bit of vintage Portsmouth & Southsea, who doesn’t? I found these over at Simplon Postcards and on the Blue Boats page. Random, but cool.

Tags: Harbour Cruise

Memorials and Monuments in Portsmouth

The Memorials and Monuments in Portsmouth website is a collection of every plaque, memorial, monument, etc in Portsmouth. The website itself is quite a fascinating resource in to local history, events and famous residents and well worth looking through the interesting background stories and old photographs. Always good to discover the history of the places you walk by every day.

Tags: Memorials, Monuments

Have A Great Weekend Everyone!

Mary Rose Trust Public Appeal

As you may have seen on the local news, The Mary Rose Trust has launched a public appeal to help fund an ambitious new £35 million museum project. As part of the appeal the trust has put on display some previously unseen Tudor artefacts from the wreak. The extraordinary Tudor items – which include a fiddle complete with its bow (Europe’s oldest example); a beautifully preserved leather ‘manbag’, the height of Tudor fashion; and the giant wooden spoon used to stir the crew’s porridge pot – have been hidden away in the Mary Rose’s reserve collection due to a lack of display space. They have been brought out of storage to highlight the need to hit the Trust’s funding target for the new museum project and through it to secure the future of the Mary Rose.

To mark the 500th anniversary year of King Henry VIII’s accession to the throne and of his commissioning of the Mary Rose, the Mary Rose Trust, the charity preserving the ship, is launching the Mary Rose 500 public appeal (www.maryrose500.org) The appeal is seeking 500 individuals, schools, businesses and organisations to come on board and symbolically become the ‘new crew’ of the Tudor warship.

Each new crew member will pledge to raise £500 towards the appeal’s £250,000 target, which will contribute to the final £1 million public appeal total to help fund the new purpose-designed and built Mary Rose Museum. The new museum, scheduled to open in time for the London Olympics in 2012, will complete the preservation of the wreck of the Mary Rose and reunite the great ship with thousands of hidden treasures that have never before been displayed in Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, the Mary Rose’s home.

Although the ship hall is temporarily closed, during the construction of the new museum, the existing Mary Rose Museum, located separately, remains open throughout the construction period to offer an amazing visitor experience including new exhibits and more than 1,000 of the finest preserved artefacts recovered from the site.

Tags: Mary Rose

Vintage Southsea Photographs & Illustrations

Found at oldukphotos.com

Vintage Portsmouth Photographs & Illustrations

Found at oldukphotos.com

Eastney Beam Engine House

If you love a bit of not often seen Portsmouth history, Eastney Beam Engine House is open to the public for free from 1pm to 5pm on every last weekend of the month. Hidden just off of Henderson Road in Eastney, the Victorian building contains two restored and working 150 horsepower ‘James Watt & Co’ Beam Engines powered by steam which were installed to operate water pumps in 1887. This new system proved very successful and is still the basis for today’s underground drainage system on Portsea Island.

Sadly due to essential building work you won’t be able to go inside the buildings this weekend, but there will be talks with staff and photos and artefacts.

Tags: Beam Engine House, Eastney

Southsea 1910

This studio photo from Southsea from 1910 shows the cycling love, she would have been down for the Strong Island Ride this Sunday, no doubt.

(from the Hampshire County Council archive)

Guildhall After WWII

On 10th January 1941 during a heavy bombing attack on Portsmouth the Guildhall was hit by several incendiary bombs which heavily damaged the structure and the resulting fires quickly spread throughout the whole building, turning it in to just a shell. It took almost 15 years to rebuild the Guildhall in to what we have today, which was officially reopened by the Queen on the 8th June 1959. This photo from Stan Webb from a collection of photos collected by Portsmouth College shows how totally destroyed the building was, leaving just some of the frontage and most of the tower.

Tags: Guildhall, WWII

Portsdown Park

Not being a born and bred native and only knowing Portsmouth and Southsea from the mid 90s I was unaware of Portsdown Park until recently flicking through some old photos in a book on Portsmouth. Portsdown Park was a site of 17.5 acres comprising a concrete housing estate of 520 dwellings, on the lower slopes of Portsdown Hill, on the northern boundary of the City. The estate was intended to be a showcase of the city council’s housing program but was ultimately destined to become an embarrassment. Work began in 1968 but with construction and contractor issues it wasn’t finished until 1975. Right from the start there were serious water penetration and condensation issues for almost half of the tenants, ‘condensation ran down the walls and dripped from light sockets, carpets became like wet sponges and clothes left inside wardrobes became mouldy’. On top of that due to its inherent architectural design problems there were serious issues of access and ultimately vandalism and gangs (empty underground carparks are never a good idea). By 1987 the whole estate was set for demolition.

For more information on the estate check the council’s information sheet (PDF file).

More photos: › Continue reading

Tags: Cosham, Portsdown Hill, Portsdown Park

What Sank the Mary Rose? on More4

For those of you that missed this hour long programme on Channel 4 in Arpil it’s repeated this Wednesday 15th July on More4 at 10pm.

A team of experts from the fields of shipbuilding, science, history and archaeology gather to study the evidence and try to pin down the reason for the disaster. Using a scaled-down model of the Mary Rose, forensic scientists reconstruct the ship’s last voyage, and a tragic picture emerges of her final moments.

Tags: Mary Rose, More4

Dockyards

The dockyards, taken on 18th July 1914. The dockyards and harbour are quiet as almost all the ships are anchored at Spithead ready for the Royal review by King George V.

(Click to see larger image)

Tags: Dockyards