Web Page 2014

4^th January 2014

Top Picture: Portsdown Hill 1922

Bottom Picture: Top of Cosham High Street 1915

I know that this is well out of my usual timescale but I eventually managed to get my uncle, who has just had his 96th birthday, to write down his earliest memories of Cosham and Drayton. I hope you find them interesting and eye opening

Memories of 114 Havant Road a house called ‘Croslands’ and the area.

         

1925. I remember the moving day from our house on the Copnor Road to the Havant Road, which was then on the extreme northern boundary of Portsmouth. I was sent to stay with my Uncle and Aunt (the Winnicotts) at their house in the London Road opposite Ophir Road. That evening I was picked up and taken to our brand new house. Imagine my amazement to be introduced to electric light in OUR house after being used to gas lighting.

I shared a bedroom on the west side of the house with my sister (9). Being young (5) and carefree my memories are happy ones. Among those are coming downstairs for breakfast to find that the maid had lit a nice warm fire in the breakfast room. But there was the night that my father looked out of an upstairs window and spotted her and her boyfriend kissing outside the side gate (what ever next!) the result was “pack your things and leave in the morning”. I later learned to do my courting away from home.

I remember a tree on the Cosham corner of Lendorber Avenue where the family gathered to wait for the king (George V) and Queen to drive by on their way from Goodwood Races to join the Royal Yacht for Cowes Week.

The front lawn was quite full of weeds and we got 1d for every 50 we dug up. I also remember my father digging a trench next to the fence into which every stone was put ready for a concrete path.  Whether one was ever built I don’t know.

My sister and I had little plots of grass, about 2ft x 1ft  on which we made our own gardens with paste pots as ponds and little stones as paths etc. At the bottom of the garden was a garage into which our cat would run when he heard the car arriving – with tragic results.

The houses next door were occupied by the Jones and Rowes. The Jones garden was L shaped with land beyond our garage and was overgrown with stinging nettles into which I was frequently pushed by the Jones boys. The large chestnut tree in the back came in very welcome for the nuts

at Christmas  despite brown fingers preparing them.

Lendorber Avenue was gravel with no surfaced footpaths. Turning right towards Drayton on the south side were several new houses. On the first corner (Court Lane) was a very old thatched cottage, which was knocked down when the road was widened. On the opposite corner was the Gammons estate. Turning left beyond our three houses was a paddock extending to Mulberry Lane. In the top far corner was a barn used for milking cows and housing them for the night.

A nursery occupied  the site of St Colmans church. From there to East Cosham Road were only three houses on the north side of the Havant Road. Each had extensive grounds. My Uncle purchased the first –Cosham House- and proceeded to vandalise the grounds by making a new driveway to the house – which he occupied- and cutting the rest up by making Padwick and Burrill Avenues. The original driveway can still be seen (I think) at the end of Widley Road. The extent of the original property can be seen by the length of the brickwall on the frontage.

The second property extended from the eastern end of the wall to the eastern boundary of Lodge Avenue. It consisted of a large house with a lodge at the end of the driveway. The entrance, nearly opposite Croslands can, I believe, still be seen by a small curved section of the entrance wall. The lodge was the home to the chauffeur/ gardener and his wife and two sons. Immediately opposite Croslands was a field where the cows mentioned earlier were kept during the day before being

driven down the road to the farm mentioned earlier. If we were luck the gardener would mow a wicket in this field for us to play cricket. The house and lodge were eventually demolished to make way for Bernard and Lodge Avenues to be built.

I hope you enjoyed that, if so I will try to get some more memories from him.

Stay in touch

Peter

DUSTYKEAT@aol.com

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News and Views:

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