Local Portsmouth knowledge needed....

[Joanna Tolhurst]

Can anyone tell me the kind of housing/neighbourhood that the following addresses might have been at the following dates:

10 Cecil Grove Portsea 1871
Kithurst, Eastern Villas Road, Portsea 1900
38 Goodwood Road Portsmouth 1901
314 Fawcett Road Southsea 1910

Thankyou
Jo

[oh carolina]

Cecil Place was in the St Paul parish so i assume Cecil Grove would be in the same area.at that time it would be in Portsea.the other three would come under Southsea or Eastern Villas might come under Eastney

[misha888]

Hiya

I live in Portsmouth, so maybe i can help.

I know Fawcett road well, i used to live off it. It's one of the main north/south roads through Southsea, the northern part of it is a mixture of housing and small shops, then it goes round an s bend and the southern half is all terraced housing. This part has the Portsmouth Jewish cemetery on it, the cemetery has been there a lot longer though and Southsea kind of grew around it.

Goodwood Road is also in Southsea, it leads onto Albert Road, one of the main west/east thoroughfares in Southsea, and it again is terraced housing.

Eastern Villas Road is very much more a posh area, it's nearer the seafront, so is full of big detached houses.

I'm only in Portsmouth for another few weeks (leaving after 9 years!  ) but if you like i can go and have alook at the addresses, see if they're still there and all that. Southsea and Portsmouth were heavily bombed in WWII and then parts were cleared for redevelopment afterwards.

Hope i've been of help!

Mishka

[Joanna Tolhurst]

Thanks Mishka, I'm particulary interested in the Eastern Villas address.

[misha888]

Ok, ill go and have a look this weekend, is it definately called Kithurst? Is there any other identifying feature except the name, just in case its changed in the last 106 years?!

Mishka

[Joanna Tolhurst]

That's all I have.  Its the address one of my great great aunts is living at when married in 1900.

[misha888]

Hello again

I just went for a drive down to Eastern Villas Road. Its a road built in a crescent shape with large houses either side. I checked each one and didn't find one called Kithurst. There are places where villas were knocked down and flats built in their place, and most of the rest have numbers instead of names.

Im just gonna refer to my Southsea books now and see if i can find a reference in there, ill get back to you.

The location is great by the way! The road leads out onto Southsea Common, and is a 2 minute walk from the pier, it would have been very exclusive back then, in fact it still looks it judging by the posh cars parked down there!

Mishka

[misha888]

Well, my books were no good! Ill pop into the city records tomorrow and get a photocopy of a map of the street in 1900 and see if thats any good. Ill let you know how i get on.

Mishka

[Joanna Tolhurst]

thankyou so much.
The address is a bit of a mystery.  My great great grandfather James Graham was with his wife and 9 daughters in West Mersea in 1891 as he was a coastguard.  In 1894 one of the daughters Ada married in West Mersea and gave her address as there.  By 1900 another daughter Agnes married from Kithurst.  1893 James was pensioned off from the coast guard and must have returned to Portsmouth where he had been in the navy when first married and from where his wife Jessie nee Clarke had come from.  Her father had a business making and fitting window blinds. By 1901 the family was at 38 Goodwood Road.
Agnes's husband gave his address as West Bolden a mining village in Durham!!