Did you know... The Red Lion Yard

On 6 February 1925, Neville Lovett was inducted as Vicar of Portsmouth, and on 7 March, he was appointed as the first Archdeacon of Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight. His forward thinking oversaw arrangements as the church progressed rapidly to becoming a cathedral; the diocese of Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight began operating on 1 May 1927. At the end of May 1927 Neville Lovett was appointed Bishop of this new diocese; he was consecrated in Westminster Abbey on 25 July, and – after St Thomas’s had been hallowed as a cathedral church on 4 October – he was enthroned there on 6 October. The Bishop’s residence, his throne and the cathedral’s coat of arms were in place. Heady days indeed for clergy & congregation!

But what was life like for those living around the ‘new Cathedral’ in Old Portsmouth then? Some considered the area very poor - a crowded but dying part of Portsmouth. In June 1929, the idea of the possible purchase of slum property to the west of the cathedral surfaced, but it was kept confidential.  This land was essential if the church was to expand westwards. At a special Chapter meeting on 8 December 1929 the purchase was unanimously agreed. The essential area comprised buildings along Church Path linking the High Street and St Thomas’s Street; also No 89, High Street and - in January 1931 - Nos 92 and 93; then another house in the High St - plus a cottage! The High Street houses were maintained and let until demolition.

We are fortunate that that there are excellent eye-witness accounts in local papers detailing what life was like living in these properties. Anne Wayman’s mother and her sister, Margaret, lived in Red Lion Yard, an old coaching house separated from Portsmouth Cathedral by Church Lane and situated between St Thomas’ Street and the High Street. A pathway from the yard led to Church Lane.  Anne’s aunt Margaret (née Tucker) dictated her childhood memories to her:
‘Mum and Dad moved from Chichester about 1922 and found accommodation in Flat 4, Red Lion Yard.  I was born in 1923 and spent 9 years there. There was a smithy on the corner as you came into the yard from St Thomas’ Street. The Red Lion Inn was at the end of the yard on the right. Wymark’s grocery shop was in Oyster Street, as was the French onion store, and the ‘Onion Johnnies’ would come on their bikes to collect the onions to sell around the streets. Flat 4 was tiny with only two rooms and a small washroom on the side. To get from the living room to the one bedroom, we had to cross a landing. The whole family slept in one room, all of us children sleeping on one mattress. By the time I was old enough to have any memories, my two oldest brothers had left home and joined the army, but that still left six of us living in two rooms.’ No mention of toilet facilities!

Another source, Ron Taw, describes the three families renting Red Lion House in 1913 (on the site of the Red Lion Inn, 93 High Street, where Samuel Pepys and Oliver Cromwell’s officers had stayed):
‘On the ground floor was Ron’s father’s Aunt Nellie and her family. On the floor above, Ron’s grandparents, along with their six children, his father being the youngest. On another floor the Oak family of four. The toilet (just one) was down the alley, next to the Bluebell pub’! Red Lion House was demolished in 1939 to make way for the first extension to the cathedral.

What would they think of the lifestyle we enjoy today?