Welcome to Rampart Road

Rita L. Jacob

In the 1920s, Phyllis and her friends could play games across Rampart Road, disturbed only by the occasional horse and cart.
In the 1920s, Phyllis Selwood and her friends could play games across Rampart Road, disturbed only by the occasional horse and cart.
An increase in motor traffic led to long queues and gridlocks during busy periods, a situation that the construction of Churchill Way was meant to resolve
An increase in motor traffic led to long queues and gridlocks during busy periods; Rita Jacob remembering that residents often had to climb over or squeeze between vehicle bumpers to cross Rampart Road.
Ode to Rampart Road by Rita Jacob
Stand 15. 'Ode to Rampart Road' by Rita Jacob. (MP3 audio clip)

Walking along Rampart Road today, it is difficult to envisage that, once, there were houses on both sides and it was a major highway, linking routes to London, Southampton and resorts along the south coast. Unfortunately, however, the increasing queues and gridlocks eventually led to the demolition of properties between St. Ann Street and Winchester Street, work on a relief road beginning in the late nineteen sixties. The Milford Hill side survived intact although four houses and a large building on the Tollgate Road corner later became part of a new housing development.

Buildings may have disappeared beneath concrete and tar but memories of Rampart Road as it was before the construction of Churchill Way linger on:-

So let me take you down Memory Lane,

Where I am a child again,

And terraced houses can be found,

Instead of tarred and concrete ground,

There behind each painted door,

A lost community lives once more!

 

An extract from Ode to Rampart Road  written for the Milford Street Bridge Project

 

 

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