Smaller places of worship in the city include StJude's Church in Southsea, StMary's Church in Portsea, StAnn's Chapel in the naval base and the Portsmouth and Southsea Synagogue, one of Britain's oldest. Other places of worship include the Immanuel Baptist Church, Southsea; Trinity Methodist Church, Highland Road; Buckland United Reformed Church; The Oasis Centre Elim Penteostal Church; Jubilee Pentecostal Church, Somers Road; Kings Church Assemblies of God (St Peter's Somers Road); Family Church; Christ Central Church, John Pounds Centre; The Jami Mosque, Bradford Junction; The Sikh Gurudwara, Margate Road.

Sport

thumb|right|Fratton Park, home of Portsmouth F.C.|alt=Fratton Park football stadium at night, home of Portsmouth F.C. The pitch is lit by floodlights.

Portsmouth F.C. play their home games at Fratton Park. They have won two Football League titles (1949 and 1950), and won the FA Cup in 1939 and 2008. The club returned to the Premier League in 2003. They were relegated to the Championship in 2010 and, experiencing serious financial difficulties in February 2012, were relegated again to League One. The club was relegated the following year to League Two, the fourth tier of English football. PortsmouthF.C. was purchased in April 2013 by the Pompey Supporters Trust, becoming the largest fan-owned club in English Football history. In May 2017, as League Two champions, they were promoted to League One for the 2017–18 season. They won promotion back to the Championship as Champions of League One in May 2024.

Moneyfields F.C. have played in the Wessex Football League Premier Division since 1998. United Services Portsmouth F.C. (formerly known as Portsmouth Royal Navy) and Baffins Milton Rovers F.C. compete in Wessex League Division One; United Services was founded in 1962, and Baffins Milton Rovers in 2011. The rugby teams United Services Portsmouth RFC and Royal Navy Rugby Union play their home matches at the United Services Recreation Ground. Royal Navy Rugby Union play in the annual Army Navy Match at Twickenham.

Portsmouth began hosting first-class cricket at the United Services Recreation Ground in 1882, and Hampshire County Cricket Club matches were played there from 1895 to 2000. In 2000, Hampshire moved their home matches to the new Rose Bowl cricket ground in West End. Portsmouth is home to two hockey clubs: Portsmouth Hockey Club, based at the Admiral Lord Nelson School and United Services Portsmouth Hockey Club, based on Burnaby Road. Great Salterns Golf Club, established in 1926, is an 18-hole parkland course with two holes played across a lake; there are coastal courses at Hayling and the Gosport and Stokes Bay Golf Club.

Transport

Roads

In March 2008, Portsmouth City Council became the first local authority in the UK to implement city-wide 20 miles per hour speed limit zones.

Ferries

thumb|right|Ferries and cargo and military vessels in Portsmouth Harbour|alt=A view of various ferries, cargo and military vessels moving out of Portsmouth Harbour. This photograph was taken from the viewing deck of the Spinnaker Tower.

Portsmouth Harbour has passenger-ferry links to Gosport and the Isle of Wight, with car-ferry service to the Isle of Wight nearby. Hovertravel, Britain's longest-standing commercial hovercraft service, begun in the 1960s, runs from near Clarence Pier in Southsea to Ryde, Isle of Wight. Portsmouth International Port has links to Caen, Cherbourg-Octeville, St Malo and Le Havre in France, Santander and Bilbao in Spain, and the Channel Islands. Ferry services from the port are operated by Brittany Ferries and DFDS Seaways.

On 18 May 2006, Trasmediterranea began service to Bilbao in competition with P&O's service. Its ferry, Fortuny, was detained in Portsmouth by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency for a number of safety violations. They were quickly corrected and the service was cleared for passengers on 23 May that year. Trasmediterránea discontinued its Bilbao service in March 2007, citing a need to deploy the Fortuny elsewhere. P&O Ferries ended their service to Bilbao on 27 September 2010 due to "unsustainable losses". The second-busiest ferry port in the UK (after Dover), Portsmouth handles about three million passengers per year.

Buses

Local bus services are provided by Stagecoach South and First Hampshire & Dorset to the city and its surrounding towns. Hovertravel and First Hampshire & Dorset operate a Hoverbus service from the city centre to Southsea Hovercraft Terminal and the Hard Interchange, near the seafront. National Express service from Portsmouth operates primarily from the Hard Interchange to Victoria Coach Station, Cornwall, Bradford, Birkenhead and Bristol.

Railways

Portsmouth has four railway stations on Portsea Island: , , and , with a fifth station at in the northern mainland suburb of Cosham, Portsmouth. Portsmouth previously had additional stations at Southsea, Farlington and Paulsgrove, but these were closed at various periods of the twentieth century.

The city of Portsmouth is on two direct South Western Railway routes to , via and via . There is a South Western Railway stopping service to and Great Western Railway service to via Southampton, , and Bristol. Southern has service to , , Croydon and .

Closed stations

Southsea once had its own branch line, the Southsea Railway, which opened in 1885 between Southsea railway station and Fratton; it was closed in 1914 due to competition from tram services.

Farlington Halt railway station was built to serve Portsmouth Park racecourse, opening as Farlington Race Course on 26 June 1891. The racecourse was closed during World War One, but the station was retained to serve the ammunition dump put in its place. The station closed in 1917. was a railway station opened in 1928 to serve the adjacent Portsmouth Racecourse, a pony racing stronghold. The station was formerly located between Cosham and Portchester stations. Paulsgrove Halt was closed along with the racecourse when the land was acquired by the military in 1939, at the outbreak of World War II.

Air

Portsmouth Airport, with a grass runway, was in operation from 1932 to 1973. After it closed, housing (Anchorage Park) and industry were built on the site. The nearest airport is Southampton Airport in the Borough of Eastleigh, away. Heathrow and Gatwick are and away, respectively. Gatwick is linked by Southern train service to London Victoria station and Heathrow is linked by coach to Woking, which is on both rail lines to London Waterloo and the London Underground. Heathrow is linked to Portsmouth by National Express coaches.

Former canal

thumb|right|250px|A map of the planned route of Portsmouth and Arundel Canal across Portsea Island from 1815

The Portsmouth and Arundel Canal ran between the towns and was built in 1823 by the Portsmouth & Arundel Navigation Company. Never financially successful, and found to be contaminating Portsea Island fresh water wells, it was abandoned in 1855 and the company was wound up in 1888. The canal was part of a larger scheme for a secure inland canal route from London to Portsmouth, allowing boats to avoid the English Channel. It had three sections: a pair of ship canals (one on Portsea Island and one to Chichester) and a barge canal from Ford on the River Arun to Hunston, where it joined the canal's Chichester section.

The route through Portsea Island began from a basin formerly located on Arundel Street and cut through Landport, Fratton and Milton, ending at the eastern end of Locksway Road in Milton (where a set of lock gates accessed Langstone and Chichester Harbours. After the island route was closed, the drained canal-bed sections through Landport and Fratton were reused for the Portsmouth Direct line, or filled-in to surface level to form a new main road route to Milton, named Goldsmith Avenue.

The brick-lined canal walls are clearly visible between the Fratton and Portsmouth & Southsea railway stations. The canal lock entrance at Locksway Road in Milton is east of the Thatched House pub.

Media

Portsmouth, Southampton and their adjacent towns are served primarily by programming from the Rowridge and Chillerton Down transmitters on the Isle of Wight, although the transmitter at Midhurst can substitute for Rowridge. Portsmouth was one of the first cities in the UK to have a local TV station (MyTV), although the Isle of Wight began local television broadcasting in 1998. In November 2014, That's Solent was introduced as part of a nationwide roll-out of local Freeview channels in south-central England. The stations broadcast from Rowridge.

BBC local radio station that broadcast to the city is BBC Radio Solent on 96.1 FM. According to RAJAR, popular radio stations include regional Greatest Hits Radio South and Global Radio's Heart South and Capital South. Easy Radio South Coast broadcasts from Southampton to the city on 107.4 MHz, and the non-profit community station, Express FM, broadcasts on 93.7. Patients at Queen Alexandra Hospital (Portsmouth's primary hospital) receive local programming from Portsmouth Hospital Broadcasting, which began in 1951. When the first local commercial radio stations were licensed during the 1970s by the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA), Radio Victory received the first licence and began broadcasting in 1975. In 1986, the IBA increased the Portsmouth licence to include Southampton and the Isle of Wight. The new licence went to Ocean Sound (later known as Ocean FM), with studios in Fareham; Ocean FM became Heart Hampshire. For the city's 800th birthday in 1994, VictoryFM broadcast for three 28-day periods over 18 months. It was purchased by TLRC, who relaunched the station in 2001 as the Quay; Portsmouth Football Club became a stakeholder in 2007, selling it in 2009.

Portsmouth's daily newspaper is The News, founded in 1873 and previously known as the Portsmouth Evening News. The Journal, a free weekly newspaper, is published by News publisher Johnston Press.

Notable people

Portsmouth has been home to a number of famed authors; Charles Dickens, whose works include A Christmas Carol, Great Expectations, Oliver Twist and A Tale of Two Cities, was born there. Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes stories, practised medicine in the city and played in goal for the amateur Portsmouth Association Football Club. Rudyard Kipling (poet and author of The Jungle Book) and H. G. Wells, author of The War of the Worlds and The Time Machine, lived in Portsmouth during the 1880s. Novelist and historian Walter Besant, author of By Celia's Arbour, A Tale of Portsmouth Town, was born in Portsmouth. Historian Frances Yates, known for her work on Renaissance esotericism, was born in the city.Francis Austen, brother of Jane Austen, briefly lived in the area after graduating from Portsmouth Naval Academy. Contemporary literary figures include social critic, journalist and author Christopher Hitchens, who was born in Portsmouth. Nevil Shute moved to the city in 1934 when he relocated his aircraft company, and his former home is in Southsea. Fantasy author Neil Gaiman grew up in Purbrook and Southsea.

Industrial Revolution engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel was born in Portsmouth. His father, Marc Isambard Brunel, worked for the Royal Navy and developed the world's first production line to mass-produce pulley blocks for ship rigging. Son of a Protestant Northern Irish petty officer in the Royal Navy, Callaghan was the only person to hold all four Great Offices of State: foreign secretary, home secretary, chancellor and prime minister. John Pounds, the founder of ragged schools (which provided free education to working-class children), lived in Portsmouth and founded England's first ragged school there.

Comedian and actor Peter Sellers was born in Southsea, and Arnold Schwarzenegger briefly lived and trained in Portsmouth. Other actors who were born or lived in the city include EastEnders actresses Emma Barton and Lorraine Stanley, comedienne and singer Audrey Jeans, and Bollywood actress Geeta Basra. Internationally-renowned street artist My Dog Sighs lives in the city and his murals can be seen on many walls in the city. Cryptozoologist Jonathan Downes was born in Portsmouth, and lived there for a time. Ant Middleton, former SBS, current television presenter and author was born in Portsmouth.

Helen Duncan, the last person to be imprisoned under the 1735 Witchcraft Act, was arrested in Portsmouth.

Notable sportspeople include Commonwealth Games gold medalist Michael East, Olympic medallist in cycling Rob Hayles, former British light-heavyweight boxing champion Tony Oakey, Olympic medallist Alan Pascoe as well as professional footballer Mason Mount. Single-handed yachtsman Alec Rose, 2003 World Aquatics Championships gold medallist Katy Sexton, and Olympic medallist Roger Black were also born in the city. Jamshid bin Abdullah of Zanzibar, the last constitutional monarch of the island state, lived in exile in Portsmouth with his wife and six children, prior to resettling in his ancestral land of Oman.

Twin towns and sister cities

Sources:

  • Caen, Normandy, France
  • Duisburg, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
  • Haifa, Haifa District, Israel
  • Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
  • Lakewood, Jefferson County, Colorado, United States
  • Maizuru, Kyoto Prefecture, Japan
  • Portsmouth, Virginia, United States
  • Portsmouth, Rockingham County, New Hampshire, United States
  • Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
  • Sylhet, Bangladesh
  • Zhanjiang, Guangdong, China

Freedom of the City

According to the Portsmouth City Council website, the following individuals and military units have received the Freedom of the City in Portsmouth:

Individuals

  • Baron Macnaghten (1895)
  • Field Marshal Lord Roberts of Kandahar (1898)
  • Sir John Baker (1901)
  • Lieutenant General Sir Frederick Fitzwygram (1901)
  • Sir William Pink (1905)
  • Sir T. Scott Foster (1906)
  • Duke of Connaught and Strathearn (1921)
  • F. G. Foster (1924)
  • David Lloyd George (1924)
  • Prince of Wales (1926)
  • Major General J. E. B. Seely (1927)
  • Sir William Joynson-Hicks (1927)
  • Frank J. Privett (1928)
  • Sir Harold R. Pink (1928)
  • Admiral Sir William James (1942)
  • Field Marshal Lord Montgomery of Alamein (1946)
  • Sir Winston Churchill (1950)
  • Albert Johnson (1966)
  • J. P. D. Lacey (1966)
  • Sir Alec Rose (1968)
  • Admiral of the Fleet Lord Mountbatten of Burma (1976)
  • Prince of Wales (1979)
  • Lord Callaghan of Cardiff (1991)
  • Princess of Wales (1992)
  • Lord Judd of Portsea (1995)
  • Lady Margaret Daley (1996)
  • Josef Krings (1997)
  • Ian G. Gibson (2002)
  • Milan Mandarić (2003)
  • Sir Alfred Blake (2003)
  • Brian Kidd (2003), former Head of Parks and Gardens in Portsmouth
  • Harry Redknapp (2008)
  • Syd Rapson (2016)
  • Alan Knight MBE (2025)

Military units

  • Royal Hampshire Regiment (1950)
  • Royal Marines (1959)
  • Portsmouth Command of the Royal Navy (1965)
  • Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment (1992)
  • , RNR (2003)
  • , RN (2007)

Organisations and groups

  • Essential Workers of Portsmouth: 16 March 2021 (service will be held in May 2021).
  • Royal Naval Association: 8 December 2021.
  • Royal Marines Association (Portsmouth Branch): 8 December 2021.
  • Association of Wrens and Women of the Royal Naval Services: 8 December 2021.
  • Pompey in the Community: 29 March 2022.
  • Life House: 15 December 2022.
  • The Southern Co-operative Limited: 10 July 2023.

See also

  • List of tallest buildings and structures in Portsmouth
  • List of twin towns and sister cities in the United Kingdom
  • Portsmouth power station

Notes

References

Citations

Works cited

General references

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