Gosport Road

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.

For most of the second half of the 20th century (pretty much since the Gosport railway closed in 1953), there have been talks about what to do about "the Gosport Road problem". Central government has generally refused to invest in what they saw as a local problem; that problem being that Portsmouth Harbour is an awkward shape that puts a lot of pressure on Fareham!

When plans to build the M27 south of Fareham were scrapped in 1960, that report conceded that Gosport needed a six-lane road running north and a bridge running the east. These didn't happen, and most improvements since have been sticking plaster solutions, which have only filled up with more traffic.

Trams

The road's importance for transport is more significant than just cars. 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 along West Street (the railway station), Portland Street, and then the entire length of Gosport Road, following the A32 route 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 (separated from other traffic). The vehicles were open-topped and provided little protection from the weather for drivers.

The trams stopped at the end of 1929. Little fuss was made, with black flags on some of the final trams, and wreaths of holly and ivy displayed. As far as the operator was concerned, the service was continuing, just with a new generation of motor buses. It was reported that the last passenger was also one of the first to use the service.

The trams were taken away because the new 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 bus depot went largely electric in 2024, after major construction work. It's also home to the only remaining section of the tram tracks (although in some places the rails supposedly survive under the new road surface).

Buses in the area originally had single digit route 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 Gosport Road has always been where Hartlands Road meets Quay Street. 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 was turned into a very wide footway for a time. There was a fountain in the middle of the junction, retained roughly until the one way system was brought in, which resulted in everybody heading up Gosport Road having to use the arch on the left.

The roundabout moved northwards when Western Way opened in 1971. Two of the arches still 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.

That little bit of road on the east, now known as Upper Wharf, is the annexed part of Quay Street. Serving Upper Quay, it literally gave Quay Street its name! Today this is an unexciting area that no longer resembles its original layout, but the Upper Quay was important to Fareham: it's the closest the town centre gets to Portsmouth Harbour. The area was known locally as Hitch-a-Bow Corner, and that name does occasionally still crop up in the building names.

It is difficult to imagine how busy the area around the quays once was, not 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 until 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).

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 extending the road into the quay.

Belvoir House was demolished in the 1930s 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, which maintained while plans to turn Newgate Lane into a fast "Gosport Link" were expored. That didn't happen, and the 1980s minor improvements package included replacing the cottages with 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. A group called 'Save Our Salterns' formed to oppose industrial development in the area. The land was owned by the council who were forced to give it to the Southern Water Authority in 1974.

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.

Had the rejected plan to route the M27 south of Fareham gone ahead, its likely that there would have been a motorway junction in this area. The 1967 road plan confirmed that there was a vague idea of building a road across Fareham Creek, which again would have crossed in this area, but it was only an aspiration and was never planned in detail. It's still fun to think that there were two projects in quick succession which, had either of them have happened, would have completely changed Hoeford and the whole Gosport Road corridor.