Bath Lane is effectively a spur of East Street, down to the quay and the amenities which lay at the bottom. It is designated U495 and U499.
William Deane, who lived in Fairfield House on East Street, gave some of his land as a gift to the people of Fareham, which is what is now known as Bath Lane recreation ground.
For years this was Fareham's only park, and it was used by the community for various events and exercises, and it also meant that this road was originally called Park Lane.
In 1838, a bathing house was built at the end of the road, using water from the creek, allowing men and women to bathe separately. As a result, the road became known as Bathing House Lane, which was later adopted as its formal name, although maps don't seem to have reflected this. The area along the waterfront was known as Bathing House Quay.
At the start of the 20th Century, the bathing house closed (to become cottages), so the street name was shortened to Bath Lane. Swimming in the creek continued to be a popular pastime until the mid-1950s, where the silting up and pollution (it was never clean by today's standards, but discarded German submarines apparently made it worse) put an end to it for most people.
Early maps show Bath Lane as a tree-lined road, with a single property at Yewtree Cottage immediately south of the railway line. Some of the park is marked as allotments, with Payne's College by the waterfront and a well by the quay. By the end of the century, most of the trees appear to have gone, and there are a couple more properties at the top of the road, although the junction with East Street is still marked as woodland.
The Fareham Gas and Coke Company moved from Wickham Road to the end of Bath Lane in 1857, where they reclaimed land on the foreshore. The waterfront then became known as Gas Works Quay. New gas holders were built in 1934 and 1948.
Work on the waterfront has always been complicated, as Fareham Creek falls under the Queen's Harbourmaster (as it was at the time), though the edge of the land (such as the foreshore pathway) is leased back to Fareham.
In the park, Fareham Cricket Pavilion was built in 1906, after they moved here from West Street. This was initially shared with the scouts and other local users. The cricket club entered Gosport and District Cricket League in 1910.
Deanes Park Road
Deane's Park Road was developed in stages between 1903 and 1908, named in honour of William Deane and his gift. (Grammatical enthusiasts will note that it had an apostrophe, but this was forgotten with time). It was a cul-de-sac down to the council's recently-built sewage pumping station by the waterfront. The sewage building is a curious thing because it's designed to blend in, but they thought it was going to be at the end of the road and never knew it would one day be visible to everyone heading down here. Even so, it does its job so well, most people don't stop to think about it.
The six houses at the far end were built first (those being the six red-brick terraces which are still there today), the rest of it was still fields.
Two more properties had been built on the now-renamed Bath Lane by the new junction, and the Bath Lane Cottages appear on this map next to the Quay. Bridgefoot Terrace at the end was built in 1911.
The next map is dated 1932 and shows at least eight new properties on the west side, north of the railway. Most of the houses on Deanes Park Road are now shown, and Yewtree Cottage and the land south of it have been divided up to become more houses.
By 1953, the space on the east side (north of the railway) had all been filled by houses, replacing the development which was already there. The woodland at the East Street junction had been replaced by buildings and the housing on the south side of Deanes Park Road now extended to the esplanade.
When work Eastern Way got underway in September 1968, Bath Lane was severed, and alternative access was required. Since land was being reclaimed anyway at the Delme Roundabout, Deanes Park Road was extended on to the creek and through the railway arches to meet the new road, replacing the track known as Esplanade. About eight properties were taken to build the road and the subway, breaking the street into Lower and Upper Bath Lane. These days you'd call that gap in the road an "LTN", but as this was an era before social media, it opened without any of the hysteria that phrase currently attracts online.
There was real controversy in 1977, when the former gas works site was used for gravel extraction. The developer wanted to build a new road along the waterfront, a plan which was widely objected to. The former gas works site was turned into Earl Godwin Close in 2007.