Kings James Gate protected the city from foreign invaders
Here is another piece of treasure found in the bundle of photographs Roger Young retrieved from a skip. The aerial view, right, is of the United Services Sports Ground in Burnaby Road.
When the photograph was taken – in about 1950 – the entrance was in St Michael’s Road.
The entrance gate was the former King James Gate which once stood on Broad Street, Old Portsmouth, where it separated Point from the rest of the city – and prevented Portsmouth from invasion. It was taken down and put up as the entrance to the officers’ sports ground.
In the corner which is circled in the picture, we can see the gate before it was removed and placed in Burnaby Road, where it remains today.
We can date this photo to the very early 1950s as the Guildhall has been partly rebuilt after it was blitzed during the war.
The ruined building at the bottom of the photograph has since been rebuilt and is now part of HMS Temeraire, the naval sports ground, which is also in Burnaby Road.
With my limited knowledge of cars, especially from the past, I was taken to task by Frank Jarvis over what I wrote last Monday about the picture, below left.
I thought it was a Ford Consul on the left of the page but Frank believes I am wrong.
He says: ‘The Ford Consul could never be described as sit-up-andbeg. Introduced in 1950, it brought us transatlantic-inspired styling in the form of the 3-box design, bonnet (engine bay), body and boot.
‘Anglias and Populars were sit