Road crash highlights changing face of north Portsmouth

You might need convincing, but the location in the black and white photograph is the same as in the colour one I took last week.What gives it away is the sign for the Harbour Lights pub on the left in both photographs, although now an entrance only.

The amount of residential housing that was demolished is quite unbelievable. The houses have been been replaced by the North Harbour hotel and shopping complex.

THEN: Southampton Road, North Harbour, Portsmouth, in the 1950s. The only clue to the location is the sign for the Harbour Lights pub on the left. Picture: Colin Hull collection.

placeholder image — THEN: Southampton Road, North Harbour, Portsmouth, in the 1950s. The only clue to the location is the sign for the Harbour Lights pub on the left. Picture: Colin Hull collection.

Just past the telegraph pole is now a turning, Compass Road leading to Binnacle Road. When these houses stood, they had the foreshore behind them and then, at low tide, vast areas of mud until the tide came in. It has, of course, all been reclaimed.

The original photograph comes from the Colin Hull collection of car accidents in and around Portsmouth in the 1950s.

NOW: Unrecognisable - the same spot in Southampton Road today. Picture: Bob Hind.

The driver, who survived the collision, had to be cut from the wreckage and a breakdown lorry is preparing to tow away the remains.

There must be many of you who once lived in Southampton Road. Please let me have your thoughts on being told you had to move as a shopping centre was to be built in your back garden.