Gordon Road

Gordon Road, seen from Grove Road on a glorious day (1979, tap to enlarge)

Originally known as School Lane, then later School Road as it became more urban. The whole area is now designated U489.

There was a farm at the western end of the road, which became an extension of the street before the 20th Century.

The school which had leant its name to the road was originally on the site of houses 3-8, having closed in the 1950s. By 1898, most of Gordon Road and Grove Road had been built, but it was a mixture of terraced housing and allotment gardens. Trinity Gardens was already there too, with one block of houses called Trinity Place.

10 years later the street name had officially changed, more houses had been built, including Colenso Road, and by the 1930s there were even more houses, including the very end of Gordon Road and New Road.

Colenso Road was bombed in 1942, and a row of flats sits in place of the damaged houses.

Even more houses had followed by the 1950s, including Derlyn Road and Leigh Road. This was the first time the Gordon Arms was shown on a map. Room was left for Arundel Drive, which arrived in 1967, replacing a lane originally called The Drive that went under the railway.

At the junction with Colenso Road stood a convenience/sweet shop run by Mr & Mrs Adams, and opposite was C&D's Surplus - an army surplus store, previously a fruit and veg shop with wooden floorboards run by an older disabled lady called Kate Farley. Opposite Derlyn Road was another convenience store run by a Mr Robinson. Gordon Stores was also in this road.

The alleyway through to Station Roundabout was built when some of the 1960s depots and service yards around Fareham railway station were sold off.