Kite Display

A kite display team practicing at the Southsea Kite Festival.

Bouncy Castles

I`ve seen bouncy castles but never a bouncy fort like this. Entertainment for the youngsters at the Kite Festival.

Southsea Kite Festival (Panorama)

The whole of Southsea Kite Festival, posted on flickr.

Southsea Kite Festival 1

Its the Southsea Kite Festival this weekend. This is the first picture from the series. Nice weather and plenty of wind, just right for flying kites ;)

The Moat at night

This is the old Moat on Southsea seafront. Not far away from the previous posts, this dates back to the times of Henry VIII. The bridge in the foreground has been newly built and in the distance you can see the lights of Gosport.

Night pictures certainly give a new beauty to an otherwise unexciting location.

Southsea Seafront (Panoramic)

I thought I`d post a panoramic shot of Southsea showing Old Portsmouth, Gosport and the Spice Island. Its posted in flickr as that enabled me to tag certain parts of the picture.

The Beach at night

Moving to the other end of Southsea, and heres a night view of the beach with ships leaving light trails in the distance.

Fishing at night

Due to the tide only coming and going twice a day, those keen fishermen have to be down by the sea at all hours to catch their fish. This is a shot showing some fishermen next to the entrance to Portsmouth Harbour, where the current is strongest. You can see their lights leaving trails in this picture. The towerblock in the distance is in Gosport, and the round tower is behind them, which dates back to the times of Henry VIII.

View this location @ Google Maps.
This image was taken just up the beach from the previous post.

Old Portsmouth at night

And yes, another night shot! This time its the promenade down by Old Portsmouth with the Spinnaker Tower lit
up in red to the right. The Tower changes colour to suit either the mood, the date or the guy who looks after the lighting say 'blue tonight Bill'

Anyway, an atmospheric shot gives you an idea of the lighting (yes, the lights have a blue 'ball' on top') on the seafront away from the multicolours of the previous post.

View this location @ Google Maps.

The Seafront at night

This is the seafront with the war memorial prominently showing. The seafront 'comes alive' in the dark, with multicoloured lights lighting the promenade all along the coast. Some information about the war memorial:

'It looks over the Solent and is a memorial which honours those whose lives were lost at sea during the two World Wars. The obelisk, bearing the names of those lost in World War I, was unveiled by the Duke of York on 15th October 1924. The extension to the monument carries the names of those lost in World War II. The monument carries the names of 24,558 men and women who died in both World Wars.'

View Satellite Image of this location @ Google Maps.

Southsea Common at night

Those of you who follow this blog know that I enjoy night time photography - well, heres another one. This shows part of Southsea common which is a large expanse of grass - usually full of people playing games in the summer months. This shot shows some of the architecture you can find on the seafront.

View Satellite Image of this location @ Google Maps.

Summer cafe

In Old Portsmouth theres a lovely old tea room - only open in the summer months, cosy and full of character. This is one of the lace curtains at the tea room, taken on my last visit ;)

Old Portsmouth Architecture

Some typical architecture you can find in Old Portsmouth. Or is it? A bit of an oddity here - if you take a closer look, the bricks in the bottom half of the building are old and theres a curve above the window frame, but if you look at the upper half you can see they look newer. Not sure why they would have just rebuilt the upper half - or perhaps they ran out of old bricks??

Flower baskets

Can you imagine a nicer place to stay? A guesthouse on the Spice Island, flower boxes in full bloom. Of course, I think it would look nicer if there were no cars - they seem to encroach everywhere these days.

Garrison Church Stained Glass

Inside the Garrison Church, as its a memorial to the war the stained glass reflects this.

Tug

One of a small fleet of Tugboats based in the harbour at Old Portsmouth. These head out to meet the big ships as they enter the harbour, to steer them to their dock. As most of the major commercial shipping goes to Southampton, we seem to only get banana boats these days (literally!)

Spice Island Inn

Just to the right of the building in the previous post you can find the 'Spice Island Inn' - a delightful public house which is once again, a converted warehouse for holding the spice when it arrived from the Carribean.

View Satellite image of Spice Island Inn @ Google Maps.

For Sale

... this lovely period three storey house on the Spice Island. I thought I would feature this as its a kind of 'typical' style of old wooden building you find in Old Portsmouth. I would say its probably around the half a million pound mark if you want to buy it! Its an old converted warehouse from the days the Spice Island was used for.. importing Spice ;)

Roundabout

A summers day at Gunwharf. All kinds of exciting little rides and activities appear. Theres the fairground rides (like that above), the boat trips around the harbour, the terraces where you can sit and enjoy the weather and have a drink and the hundreds of people heading to their shop of choice. Personally, I`m not sure if we need these 'all in one' entertainment venues. What do you think? The building in the background under construction is the new 'giant lipstick' (as we call it) which will be 26 floors tall.

View Satellite image of this location @ Google maps.
The little red box is a similar ride in the same location.

The Last Fish Stall?

Well, thats not technically true. This is the last fish market stall in the fishing harbour area, there is another stall that appears occasionally at market time in the main city shopping street. In the old days I`m sure the whole area was full of market stalls but as a sign of the times, this is the last one left.

View Satellite image of location @ Google maps.
Yes, you can even see the stall in the image, the little white rectangle in the center of the picture!

Canoe Lake at Dusk

Another image from my selection of low light shots. The Canoe Lake, with the fine Swan hire boats in view!

View location @ Google Maps.

Baffins Pond at Dusk

This is one of the only other 'ponds' or lakes there are in Portsmouth. Its nice to visit here at dusk as theres very little traffic around and none of the noise of the seafront.

View Baffins Pond @ Google Maps.

The Harbour Entrance at Dusk

The entrance to Portsmouth Harbour at dusk - with Fishbourne car ferry just going out of shot. In the distance you can see the two apartment blocks on Gosport seafront. To the right is some old naval buildings.