NOSTALGIA: Another long gone Portsmouth pub
The points in the tram track would have been plugged to stop any tramcar passing over the junction.
The building on the corner is Smith & Vosper, the well-known bakery. The sign says: ‘Smith & Vosper Care’.
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Hide AdNext door to the bakery was the Sportsman. The Portsmouth Pubs website tells us: ‘Formerly the Eagle until the 1880s, the Sportsman stood mid-terrace at busy Kingston Cross. Purchased from the Jewell brewery by Brickwood’s around 1899, the pub survived until 1938 when it was demolished along with the adjacent buildings to make way for a road widening scheme.’
Today Kingston Cross does not look any wider than the original photograph so whether the road widening took place I cannot say. Mind you, the war started the following year so perhaps it was abandoned.
This busy junction is normally the scene of non-stop traffic so I got there at 6am on a Saturday to get a clear shot.
•Ryde Pier with its unique system of self-propelled trams. The driver could only drive at one end and on reaching Ryde Esplanade it was propelled back to the Pier Head station. There were several incidents of trams hitting the buffers.
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Hide AdIt opened in August 1864 with horse-drawn vehicles on the half-mile-long pier. By 1886 the cars were driven electrically. Petrol took over in 1927.
Comfort was not a feature of the two-minute journey; capacity counted and two cars carried 90 including those standing.
Diesel took over in 1958/59 but 10 years later the line closed, on January 26, 1969.
This picture dates to about 1920. I wonder what homecoming festival fans would have made of these ornate trams?
Picture: Barry Cox Collection