Stop 5: Elizabeth Cottages-Information
Elizabeth Cottages are from Number 42 to 56, The Green. These are adjacent to the Fountain Inn. The long line of buildings are collectively called the Elizabeth Cottages. If you look at them carefully, you will notice that the left-hand-side building is slightly higher than the rest of the buildings. There are actually three separate buildings. The left-hand building comprises two properties, the middle buildings comprise two properties and the right one comprises four properties. In the 1860s a gentleman bought all the properties and put that facade on the front to make it look like it’s all part of the same building.
The village was not a backwater, as by 1847 there were at least 15 businesses there. In 1885 numbers 1 and 2 together sold for £1,100 and in 1886, number 4 was advertised in the Portsmouth Evening News for rent at 12 shillings a week. In the early 20th century, the gardens of these properties were opened out as Tea Gardens to visitors coming for a day out in Rowlands Castle. Tea Gardens were popular up until the 1930’s, with tourists arriving either by train or charabanc or perhaps by the Portsmouth to Horndean Light railway tram, which climbed Portsdown Hill via Waterlooville, terminating at Horndean.