Seven fascinating pictures of classes from the 1930s in Portsmouth

A Victorian facade is in the middle of the supermarket building’s regulation brickwork, and is a relic from when the site used to house a school.

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It was originally from the Bell School, built in the 1810s. This was later bought by a Father Dolling – a well-known and long-standing priest at St Agatha’s who wanted a school in his parish. The school stayed as St Agatha’s until suffering bomb damage in the Second World War, and after that was taken over by St Luke’s Girls School. It was next-door to the Royal Portsmouth Hospital which closed in 1979 and was demolished, and the school building disappeared at the same time.

Sainsbury’s stayed open until 2021, and the building is currently an indoor skate park. It will be part of the city council’s plans to transform the area in the wake of the collapse of the Northern Quarter dream.

These school pictures were submitted bv Edna Webb, and show several classed from the 1930s. Not many of the children in the pictures will still be alive – but the pictures are a fascinating window into a world that has literally and metaphorically disappeared.