A Description of the Hard

‘Thirty years ago (it) was a place which seemed to belong to the previous century. There were no great houses and handsome shops, but in their place, a picturesque row of irregular cottages, no two of which were exactly alike… They were two storied houses; the upper story was very low, the ground floor was below the level of the street…A wooden bench was placed along the iron railing near the beach, on which sat every day, and all day long, old sailors, in a row.’ Extracted from By Celia’s Arbor by Walter Besant, 1878. To find out more about Besant and his connections with Portsmouth, consult Portsmouth Paper no 74, Portsmouth Novelists by David Francis.