Mysteries of long-forgotten Portsmouth streets revealed pre-demolition

Henrietta Street with The Mystery pub at the end in June 1964. Inset is the original picture of the backs of some of these homes, complete with tin baths.

Since I first used the picture of Henrietta Street, Portsmouth, there have been several readers’ stories based around their bath-in-front-of-the-fire escapades.

Now I discover that regular contributor David Janes, from Alverstoke, Gosport, took a series of pictures which charted the Somers Town’s street’s demise in the 1960s.

He says a photographic record of the backs of homes such as these is a rarity.

Tin baths hanging in the back yards of Henrietta Street, Landport

David managed to work out, thanks to the spire of The Mystery pub peeping above the houses, that the picture was taken from the drive adjacent to No26.

This led to premises behind the houses in Henrietta Street used in the 1920s, at least, by WH Enfield, a coal and coke merchant.

David says: ‘The Mystery places the view as taken from the north side of Henrietta Street, the even-numbered side.

‘The block wall on the right places the properties being, from the left, 26, 28, 30, 32, 34 and 36.’

And he has sent me four of his pictures tracking the street’s closure and demolition.