This was a nostalgic trip for me. I used to live literally round the corner from this lovely building, although at that time you could only see the top half as it was surrounded by a high wall. Pieces of glass were set into the top of the wall, to stop people climbing over. Even in those benighted times, this was illegal and constituted a man trap. Goodness knows when these shards were mounted into the wall, well into previous centuries certainly

Since then, walls were taken down and this delightful gazebo was exposed for all to see. It is from the c18 and was built as all gazebos were, to enable the leisured classes to enjoy the view from over the wall, and no doubt in those days for quite a distance. It would have looked out over the Fair Field, a large green space which would have hosted an annual fair. This is long gone, and today is commemorated by a road called Fairfield Road. The row of houses in this road was built in the reign of Queen Victoria, quite late in her reign as I remember, from building material taken from the demolition of the old manor house opposite.

Coming back to the gazebo, this was in a large garden at the back of a beautiful Georgian house called Magnolia House, occupied by two generations of dentists, now gone. Still a dentists surgery but the original old Havant family is no longer there. The house is one of the very few Georgian buildings to have survived a great fire in the c18. It is slightly uphill from the rest of the town which may have saved it from the flames.

I did this little watercolour quite quickly just to preserve a childhood memory. Havant is not a town which escaped development and there are very few gems like this remaining

I don’t live in Havant now, haven’t done for many years. My father lived in the family home in nearby Manor Close, named after the manor house which disappeared. I used to go down regularly so was able to look at the gazebo in all its glory, although could never go in as that is by appointment only, and time did not allow. The only problem with going back to scenes of one’s childhood, is that you start to hear voices of people you knew at the time, so stop and move on