Southampton Tramways - Bargate & Portswood c1930

The ornate Grand Theatre, which once stood at West Marlands, was opened in 1898 and was reached by way of Aslatt's Cut, a narrow passageway which ran from Above Bar, opposite where the Clock Tower used to stand at the junction with New Road. For more than half a century this was Southampton favourite public building. Here, in the warm, intimate atmosphere of Southampton's own playhouse, audiences applauded names of many of the country's leading players including Irving, Bernhardt, Ellen Terry, Forbes-Robertson, Mrs Patrick Campbell, Martin Harvey, Fred Terry and Julia Neilson and Matheson Land.

Following sucessful inter-war years of repertory, the theatre declined after the Second World War, closed its doors in 1959 and was demolished two years later.

Before the mid-1930s a visitor to Southampton who strolled up the main streets would have been charmed, as he reached the area around the Clock Tower, to discover between the shops and offices an oasis of trim lawns and graceful trees together with an elegant two-storey red-brick building, its walls clad in creeper.

To its south ran Aslatt's Cut and to the north, the equally narrow Gibbs Road. The building was Thorner's Charity Almshouse, built in 1787 and made possible by a request of Robert Thorner, a London businessman who, on retirement, settled in North Baddesley and became a faithful member of the congregation at the Above Bar Congregational Church.

The almshouse, for more than a century and a half, became a resting place for "deserving and indigent widows". However, with the construction of the Civic Centre it was decided that this beautiful old building had to be demolished as part of the redevelopment.

Opened in 1863, Southampton's first purpose-built library and art gallery stood at the junction of London Road and Cumberland Place. Here, almost 100 years earlier, New Place House, a notable three-storey mansion set in extensive grounds, had been built.

SOURCE; Southern Evening Echo, 24th June 2015 - The buildings that helped shape Southampton by Keith Hamilton

Видео Southampton Tramways - Bargate & Portswood c1930 канала Southampton on Video