Shillingstone has been misrepresented. It was not just there to get children to local public schools. It was on a main line - the Somerset and Dorset from Bath to Bournemouth. The line carried principal expresses from the north and midlands to Bournemouth. The chief one being the Pines Express from manchester to Bournemouth, which I travelled on as a child for holidays.
just when brutalism gains its prescience, The Monstrous CarBunckle becomes trendy and nostalgic, they knock it down for a poorlt tarmacked car park. It's 20 yrs later, 2024, and it's still a car park. They should have turned it into a skate park and a free blank canvas for graffiti artists, turning Portsmouth into a cultural boom city. The tourism alone.... Completw morons
Travelled on the Puffing Billy several times in the 50s. Loved it, iconic steam train - every boy's dream! All smoke, steam and dirt. We stayed in a caravan on the St Mary's site (I think it was) and had a beach hut on the very fine sandy beach. But the Puffing Billy was the greatest start and end to the holiday. Parents always sent off our luggage trunk a couple of weeks ahead and there it was on Havant station waiting for us and loaded onto the Billy before being delivered to us at the caravan I guess. happy days.
Criminal that the Tricorn Centre was pulled down. It should have been listed, restored, and reimagined for the 21st century. It was a fascinating architectural fantasy, mixing up all the things we loved about city centres (shops, market stalls, bars, cafes, parking, flats, hotel) into a massive brutalist complex that looked totally different whichever angle you looked at it. It was sculptural and was a fine example of utopian 1960s megastructure ideals - see also Cumbernauld town centre.
Yet another councillor full of 💩 That’s all they do all day, produce nothing, and then charge you for it. 40 years in business in and around Portsmouth so I can assure you nothing has changed.
Another gorgeous piece of 1960's modernist architecture flattened for the sake of it. How sad that us Brits are obsessed with demolishing icons from the last decade before the demise of our once great country
Biggest mistake that was made wasn't closing the lines, it was selling off the land. A huge swathe of the lines lost are now needed but the land in now built on. Beeching was a fix it now and never mind the future sort of guy, very short sighted attitude when dealing with public services. It should of all been mothballed.
I remember being dragged there to the shops in the mid 80s... and whilst I was only a kid, the sort of sleazy dystopian energy of the place captivated me... didn't even know what brutalism was then. Seeing photos of the Tricorn now conjures up strong, vivid, and nostalgic memories of my childhood and of the 80s on the South Coast.
Forgot to mention, that wooden bridge was so badly maintained that the Royal Navy tried to blow up concrete structural pillars, I note that it is still there today!
Think I am a little tardy with this comment but in my former years (i am 72 now) I could sit up in bed and watch the Billy chuffing along as it exited the bridge on the Hayling side. I was lucky enough to live in the first house on the Island next to what was then the Regent Garage, as a loony 12 year old I would walk the railway bridge and get below the turntable part of it (on the maintenance platform) and wait for a train to go over it, it was deafening and all the rust would drop from the steel superstructure. Used to collect cockles under that bridge too, a great tea time treat.
I think the Government cuts to the Railways back in the 60's was step too far, So many small towns and villages cut off from the rest of world, if they wanted to makes cuts, they should of close stations that were seeing low traffic and leave the tracks alone. Thanks God the Government left the ECML alone, Just imagine if that line closed between Newcastle and London Kings Cross, this would of made a massive impact of my life as i can't drive as my disabillity stop me from being able to drive.
I've lived in NY for 17 years now but in the 90s, this was one of the coolest most interesting bits of architecture that Pompy had. I used to play Tekken in the arcade with my brother.
We have now a cark park which is more useful than the Tricorn. None of the grand plans of the politicians came true! As a resident I don't wish the Tricorn was still there. Basin's nightclub has a reputation still lingering as the roughest in Portsmouth, and that's saying something.
Beeching & co destroyed our rail system, pretty much how Messrs witty, Johnson ad Co tried to control the population with covid lockdowns and shit. The various governments right from the start have feathered their own nests at the expense of the public. This country desperately needs a completely fresh political system. The 1st past the post system is corrupt.
We need a good rail system now because the road system has reached max capacity ,there are far to many cars on the roads. Some car drivers are absolute idiots behind the wheel. The driving test needs to be made harder to deter these idiots from ever getting behind the wheel.
There was an amazing comic store upstairs hidden away, domino records selling vinyl, and a Laser Quest opened shortly before it was slated for demolition. I seem to remember the lads that ran it done a bunk with all the money and vanished. The old market was mad, I love brutalist architecture and actually did some photography of it as an art student In Pompey. The walls on the roof were covered In spray can memorials painted by people who knew the poor souls who jumped off the top. It’s a strange old building and it had stalactites hanging from the concrete ceilings from all the rain and water dripping in.
always this fake news, beeching cut nothing , he made a report , labour were in power and cut it all. inc 100's of miles not in beechings reports. after the cull labour then gave beeching an award
Beeching and Marples together with the backing of the governments of the day decimated a once great rail system...pure vandalism...so little foresight back then?
"It will be used as a car park for one year, then development of Northern Quarter will start" were the words of PCC. Then one evening, a contractor tells me "We are laying a 20 year surface for the car park". The clues were there I guess.
