Grand Parade

This fashionable area of Portsmouth was the hub of activity and centre for military parades. It has variously been described as: ‘A most charming resort for the gay, the elegant and the distinguished of both sexes. The public promenades, on the Platform, Parade, Ramparts and the Queen’s Battery, where the company are regaled every fine evening with the most choice airs, performed by the military bands, are also a charming source of rational and healthful entertainment to minds susceptible to such exquisite pleasures.’ Mottley 1776 ‘this guard (the main) is very well situated as it commands the gate, the High Street and is near the magazine (Square Tower), the platform and the governor’ Leake 1729 ‘the ramparts next to the sea, with that beautiful prospect of the Isle of Wight, the ocean and the shipping’ Wilkinson ‘everything looked so beautiful under the influence of such a sky, the effects of the shadows pursuing each other, on the ships at Spithead and the island beyond’ Jane Austen in Mansfield Park