45 Adames Road
45 Adames Road Portsmouth was where Nanny and Uncle Peter lived in the 1950s and 1960s. On the map above it links St Mary's Road with Brookfield Road. There was a shop at the front selling groceries, sweets, and beer. Through the back was a little sitting room and kitchen. When the shop door bell rang, Uncle Peter would get up from his chair in the sitting room and go through to the shop to serve the customer. I think it was usually Saturdays that we visited because the television would be on with the football results. I remember on one occasion leaving to go home just after the tv programme 'Six-Five Special' had come on. That programme ran for two years 1957/8. It was so named because it was broadcast at 6:05 on Saturday evenings.
Uncle Peter took over the off licence for 45 Adames road in 1951. It was known as the Windsor Castle but I don't remember it by that name.
The early days – 1868 - 1886
Before the area was developed it consisted of open fields with a brickworks as this map from 1873 shows.
The first streets to be built in the area were Hanover Street and Union Street which can be seen on the enlarged map. Hanover Street became Adames Road when the area was developed. 45 Adames Road was originally the last house at the bottom of Hanover Street.
The first mention of Hanover Street in the electoral registers is in 1869, so it was probably built in 1868. There were 22 houses in a terrace down one side numbered sequentially from 1 to 22. Later in 1880 just before the main development of the area, the houses were renumbered as odd numbers. The last house, number 22, became number 45. The 1881 census for Hanover Street records that another 22 houses were under construction, presumably the even numbers on the other side of the road.
The whole area was completely developed during the 1880s. There is a lot of evidence of this activity in the Portsmouth Evening News with sales of building plots, construction of new tramways in St Marys Road, road improvements, sewerage improvements and suchlike. There is no evidence that the original house number 22 included a shop. Initially it seems to have been just the house.
The first occupants that we know of are Harry Horton and his family living at 22 Hanover Street in the 1871 census.
Harry Horton was born in Portsmouth in 1836. In the 1861 census he is a merchant seaman on board the Sea Adventure moored in Portsmouth Harbour. The Sea Adventure was a coaster moving coal around coastal ports. In 1863 he married Joan Henderson in Shetland. He must have met her on his travels as a seaman. Their first child was born in Shetland, but all the rest of their children were born in Portsmouth. He soon gave up working at sea and settled down in his home town in 22 Hanover Street. He was a labourer quite possibly working in the local brick fields.
Harry Horton died in 1878 and a William Bryant then moved in to 45 Adames Road (still Hanover Street at the time) with his wife and two children. William had recently left the Royal Navy after serving 23 years as a steward. The house around this time was owned by a brewer called Richard Moss trading as Simonds and Co, from a brewery in Winchester. It seems likely that William Bryant was sponsored by Simonds Brewery because in September 1880 he applied to the Portsmouth magistrates for a licence to sell beer from 45 Hanover Street. Bryant had recently built another house, number 47 and had knocked through to make a single house with shop. This work was probably funded by Simonds Brewery in anticipation of the trade that would arise from the development of the area. From now on 45 and 47 Adames Road exist as one house and shop.
The licence was refused and reading between the lines it seems that it was refused because there was still too much work to do to finish the conversion to add the shop. The delay obviously didn't suit William Bryant's circumstances because he gave up on the venture. When another application for an off licence is made a year later on 5th August 1881, this time it is in the name of James Stride.
The announcement confirms that 45 Adames Road was formerly Hanover Street, and that James Stride is renting the house from Simonds Brewery.
A month later the licence was granted :
James Stride was born in 1830 in the Cherry Garden Field area of Portsea Island, which was to the North and East of St Mary's church. As its name suggests it was then an agricultural area. His father was a blacksmith. James initially worked in farming and later became a blacksmith working in the Dockyard. In 1881 when he retired from the Dockyard he and his wife Emily became the first occupiers of the new off licence in 45/47 Adames Road. He gave it up after five years in 1886 after his wife died, when the road looked like this.
The double width house on the right hand side about half way down, is 45&47 Adames Road. It has a back entrance reached from Samuel Road. And the original Hanover Street houses are slightly smaller than the later houses
.
Jeremiah Rourke alias John Canty 1886 - 1889
The tenancy and licence then transferred to a mysterious character called Jeremiah Rourke, an alias of a man called John Canty from Tralee, Co. Kerry, Ireland. He joined the Royal Navy in 1859 at the age of 19 using the false name Jeremiah Rourke. Why he assumed this name is anybody's guess, but when he married in 1867 he gave both names:
In 1875 – 1876 Rourke served as a volunteer in the engine room on HMS Discovery with the British Arctic Expedition, led by Sir George Nares. Two ships HMS Alert and HMS Discovery sailed from Portsmouth on 29 May 1875, in search of a route to the supposed Open Polar Sea surrounding the North Pole. The expedition was a near disaster. The men suffered badly from scurvy and inappropriate clothing and equipment. Nares retreated southward in the summer of 1876. This is a painting of the expedition with HMS Discovery in the foreground.
Rourke/Canty left the navy in 1885 and took over as the landlord of a pub 'The Lord Hood' in Rutland Street Portsmouth. By then his family consisted of his wife Sarah and seven children. Less than a year later the family moved to the 45 Adames Road off licence:
But it seems as if he didn't settle working ashore, and three years later in 1889 he went back to working on the sea, where he died ten years later:
William and Caroline Winsor 1889 - 1902
William Winsor took over the tenancy from Jeremiah Rourke on 6th July 1889, as reported in the Hampshire Telegraph.
William Winsor had left the Royal Navy two months earlier on 23 April after 23 years service, the last 9 as a Chief Petty Officer. He married Caroline Edney in 1874 and they had two children a boy and a girl. Sadly both children died in 1886. Their third child Ivy Louise was born in 1890 in 45 Adames Road.
Here's the 1891 census record – showing him with his wife Caroline and daughter Ivy who is now a year old. William is from Fleetwood, Lancashire and styles himself a grocer. The address is 45 & 47 Adames road.
Ten years later in the 1901 census all three are still there in 45 Adames Road but now its called the Windsor Castle off licence. Surely he's named it after himself! Whatever the reason for the choice of name it persisted right through to the 1950s.
After thirteen years occupation the Winsors left in 1902/3, and Benjamin Redman and family take over.
Benjamin and Annie Redman 1903 to 1942
Benjamin Redman was a baker aged 35 with premises in Arundel Street. He was married to Annie, and they had no children. They adopted their niece Ivy Millen whose father had died in 1904 and her mother (Benjamin's sister) died in 1908 when Ivy was 11.
Here they are in the 1911 census. The house has 7 rooms and the shop so it's quite likely that they took in lodgers. We can see from the electoral roll for the same year that Benjamin still continued to run a bakery in Arundel Street as well as the off licence in Adames Road.
The Redmans occupied 45 Adames Road for nearly 40 years. Benjamin died in 1927, but Annie and Ivy carried on until 1942. When Annie Redman moved out in 1942 the licence transferred to a Brickwoods director, along with several other off licences. At some point the licence transferred to Florence Dover, who was the licence holder when Uncle Peter took over in 1951. At some time the off licence must have been sold by the owning brewery because nowadays 45 and 47 are two separate houses in private ownership.