The mighty and the notorious, Gosport Road is perhaps the best example of how much something can change within 100 years. It was designated A32 in 1922, and still holds that status today. While never a primary route (as Gosport wasn't considered an important enough destination), it did used to have green signs in places.
Records indicate that for the past 50 years, pretty much since the Gosport line closed in 1953, there have been talks about what to do about "the Gosport road problem". Central government has generally refused funding for what they perceive as a regional problem. Various proposals have been made, both across the creek (which made for objections to dualling the road online as this was apparently going to happen soon) and heading west through Cams Alder. Traffic along the Gosport Road corridor is pretty much the source of all of Fareham's traffic problems: those who said that a widened road would only fill up with traffic certainly had a point!
When plans to build the M27 south of Fareham were scrapped in 1960, the government conceded that Gosport needed a six-lane road to the north and a bridge to the east. That didn't happen.
Trams
The first thing of note is the Gosport and Fareham Tramway. In 1906, The Provincial Tramways Co decided to change their focus from horse-drawn trams around Portsmouth (and later Gosport) to an electrified tramway between Fareham West End and Gosport. The route was West Street (from the station), Portland Street, and then the entire length of Gosport Road, following the A32 route in to Gosport Hard. In their heyday, they ran every 15 minutes and cost 4d for the full journey. The track was a mixture of online sections (through Fareham), and where there was space for it, offline, and the vehicles were open-topped and provided little protection from the weather for drivers.
The trams stopped at the end of 1929. Commemorations were muted, with black flags on some of the final trams, and wreaths of holly and ivy. It was reported that the last passenger was also one of the first to use the service.
The trams were taken away because the omnibuses were deemed to be cheaper, more flexible and easier to operate. The younger customers seemed to agree, but older passengers told the press they thought this was a mistake. Gosport Council noted that this was a commercial service so they wouldn't be getting involved. Services continued to be operated by Provincial, until the National Bus Company took over in 1970, where Provincial became an entity of Hants & Dorset. It was then bought out in 1987, and taken over by First in 1995.
The trams had been powered from a depot in Hoeford, which is still one of the main bus depots in the region. Ironically, having powered electric trams and then diesel buses, the depot went largely electric in 2024, after major construction work. It's also home to the only remaining section of tramway (although in some places the rails supposedly survive under the new road surface).
Buses in the area originally had single digit numbers. After Provincial merged with Portsmouth's Blue Admiral, the Gosport numbers had an '8' put in front of them, to avoid clashing with the Portsmouth routes. This lasted until 2012, when a new sequential numbering system meant the Gosport area had its bus routes numbered from 4A to 11.
The Quays
The start of the road has always been where Hartlands Road meets Quay Street (for many years the two formed a looped one way system, so people heading up Gosport Road had to turn left), although the two used to come through the railway arches to meet, which can still be seen in the shape of the western retaining wall, which allowed for what was a very wide footway. Access to Upper Quay is provided here, which was known locally as Hitch-a-Bow Corner, and that name does occasionally still crop up in the building names.
The roundabout moved northwards when Western Way opened in 1971. Two of the arches have white lines and empty sign posts placed on top of them on one side: these are the left/western-most one, and the one which straddles the little road, Upper Wharf. These features reveal the original road layout where a roundabout ran through the arches, and they showed HGVs how to fit under the arch, as was required at the time. They became redundant when the layout was changed in 1971, hence the empty signs, but they have never been removed, even though the roads underneath have been rebuilt a few times (one of them was closed for 40 years!) and the white lines no longer line up at all.
Tap these photos to enlarge them.
Widening works taking place along the waterfront, looking up towards Upper Quay. The old fencing can be seen in the foreground (1982)
It is difficult to imagine how busy the area around the quays once was, not at all helped by the changes to Gosport Road, along which ships would have once been moored. Calls to improve the safety of this road were rife, with a history of people falling in to the quay, but it was never actually fully barriered nuntil the 21st Century. In its prime, a regatta was held on the creek here ('creek' nower days tends to only refer to the section by East Street).
With motor traffic becoming an important consideration, there was a very long and drawn-out debate over whether Gosport Road should be upgraded, or whether a new road should be provided. Once the motorway was open and it was clear no new road would be forthcoming, a package of improvements was put forward, the first of which was to make the northern half of Gosport Road a dual carriageway. This opened in November 1983, costing £1.1 million, and was mostly achieved by extended the road into the quay.
In the 1930s, Belvoir House was demolished to make way for the housing area around Belvoir Close, with the small Blackbrook stream marking its boundary. Its location was on slightly higher land as Gosport Road itself was known to flood at high tides. The Lodge survived this demolition.
Elmhurst House, which is immediately next to it, was demolished to allow for the diversion of the road. The original alignment of the road here is obvious - down what is now a footpath over Gilly's Creek, onto Old Gosport Road, in what was Town Quay, past the Castle In The Air Pub, and then up towards Mill Lane (once Windmill Lane, now without its windmill; the two roads are on a perfect alignment). Few houses were lost when the road was upgraded because it was mostly raised above marshland, but approximately 10 were lost for the construction of what is officially called Mill Road Roundabout. In Lower Quay/Town Quay was the Electric Light Works and a Corn Mill.
Rose Cottage became Brook House.
It is easy to be misled by Old Gosport Road: the extra stub by the roundabout, which is used mostly for car parking, was built when Southfield Lodge was demolished in the 1960s and isn't a clue as to the alignment of the original road.
Down to the Gyratory
Unlike Old Gosport Road, the redundant section of road outside the printers is the old alignment. From here onwards, the current northbound carriageway is the old road (although not a direct replacement). A row of houses on the east side called Albert Terrace were demolished to achieve this. The space their garden left allowed more modern facilities, such as the petrol station, to be added. The church/school was moved at the same time. This project was met with opposition from residents, forming a campaign "homes not roads", mirroring a much higher profile movement in London.
Mainsail Road replaced the Alverstoke & Fareham Laundry Earls Road once joined in here, in an area once known as Ropewalk Fields. At number 121 Gosport Road was the post office.
To the west, Butlers Cottage became Beaconsfield House at the start of the 20th Century. This and a football ground were demolished in the 1950s to create Beaconsfield Road.
Some of the buildings are set back slightly from the road. This allowed for front gardens, but today it is publicy-owned and has proven useful in allowing parking on the road (even if parking here is difficult at best). One objection to widening the road was that it would carve up the area. Today this is a very real problem, but the complaint at the time was that elderly people couldn't use the footbridge, hence traffic lights were provided by the petrol station.
At Cams Alders (taken over by Tom Parkers Dairies), where Redlands Lane joins, Elms Road was added in the 1930s, on the site of Earls Farm. One 1970s plan had a new Gosport Road leaving here and taking a new western route down to Gosport. Here Gosport Road erred slightly to the east (following the eastern arm of the road today), meeting Newgate Lane on the bend.
Newgate Lane was originally a much more minor arm; it didn't really go anywhere until the retail parks opened. The junction became a sort-of roundabout arrangement in 1968, where a full loop of road ran around the cottages, before the cottages were replaced by the new Newgate Lane flyover in 1986.
Salterns Lane mainly serves housing now, but the sewage works where Watersmeet is was once the main destination.
South of here, and down to the boundary with Gosport, the road started the century as a dusty path through fields, hence the parallel tramway, and slightly further away, the main railway line. As part of the "Gosport package" alluded to further up, minor changes were made to the road from here to Forton in 1990.
Most of the housing was added in the 1940s, Geoffery Crescent was added in the 1960s, while some of the early houses by the Hoeford ("Hoe Ford") Depot were demolished to form the factory which is now an industrial estate.
Between some of these houses, gaps were left, one of which formed a rather convenient access to Henry Cort Way (the new Eclipse bus way). This was heavily criticised at the time, but 10 years on, it seems crazy that people had tried to call it a "white elephant" before it ever opened. In this area, a motorway junction would have been built, had the original plans gone ahead.