NOSTALGIA: Reader comes up trumps with site of Waterlooville tram photograph

It seems bizarre today to see pedestrians wandering down the middle of this road and a horse and cart gently easing their way up the slope '“ all without a care in the world.Perhaps those on foot had just alighted from the tram?
By The Newsroom
Published 2nd Jan 2018, 20:00 BST
The Edwardian picture of London Road, Waterlooville, taken from near where the Sacred Heart Church is today.The Edwardian picture of London Road, Waterlooville, taken from near where the Sacred Heart Church is today.
The Edwardian picture of London Road, Waterlooville, taken from near where the Sacred Heart Church is today.

That car belonged to the Portsdown and Horndean Light Railway and the road is London Road, Waterlooville – the A3.

We recently published a black and white version of this picture but we were not sure exactly where this scene was. I needed to know because colleague Bob Hind is preparing a book about the light railway.

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Thanks to reader John Fowler, I think we have the answer. He also kindly provided the colour pictures of this rather relaxed street scene.

John Fowlers 2015 picture which shows the same spot more than a century on.John Fowlers 2015 picture which shows the same spot more than a century on.
John Fowlers 2015 picture which shows the same spot more than a century on.

John says the original (first picture) ‘may well have been taken by a local professional photographer, Herbert Marshall, about 1900 and he would have been standing near what is now the Sacred Heart Church’.

However, the tramway did not start running until 1903 so we’re probably looking at the first decade of the last century.

Of Marshall, John adds: ‘His shop/studio is one of the few older buildings still standing – opposite the Wellington pub (which soon won’t).’

Related topics:READERNostalgiaWaterloovilleLondon Road