Easton, Portland

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Easton Square

Portland, Dorset

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All the pictures on this page showing a thick border are thumbnails. Clicking on the picture will produce a larger version. Use your browser BACK button to return to this page.

The above image is copyright Dorset County Council 2000 and is reproduced here with permission.

Easton Square lies near the heart of this aerial photograph.

There is much to explore in this busy area but, in keeping with the motive of this web site, I have only included here buildings that have substantially changed since the late 1980s or have some interest.

There are a large number of old photographs of Easton to be found by clicking here.

Please click here for a detailed street map. Click the BACK button on your browser to return to this page.

Please click here to visit the satellite image of this area on Google Maps. Click the BACK button on your browser to return to this page.

Please click here to explore this area in Google Street View.

ADJACENT TO THE SQUARE

On the south side of Easton Square, next to the Conservative Club, stood N. J. Last's motor repair and servicing premises. In 1989 it was demolished and the site cleared to build flats; the foundations for which are being laid in the right-hand picture.

A PARTY IN EASTON SQUARE

11 August 2007

At a community fete held in Easton Square Gardens, the Steps In Time (SITIP) project displayed old Portland pictures from its archives. Lorraine and her volunteers enjoyed answering questions and explaining the pictures. To visit the Steps In Time website please click here.

EASTON SQUARE

The clock tower in the gardens. There are many old pictures of the gardens to be found by clicking here.	Please click here to see old pictures of the Methodist church in Easton square.

REFORNE - WEST OF EASTON SQUARE

Fancy's Garage was located on the north side of Reforne opposite the launderette/ dry cleaning shop - which has also now disappeared. The garage was demolished in 1989 and the site cleared for housing. Fancy's was at the 'cheap and cheerful' end of the car business. Let me relate a fairly typical encounter. I once left my car to have the brake linings renewed. As I drove it home there was a terrible squealing from one drum. I removed the wheel and found in the brake drum a pebble and a cigarette end! Clicking here will show you a picture of Fancy's Garage in World War 2.

On the site of Fancy's Garage is a new housing estate appropriately named 'Fancys Close'.

This picture shows the part of Reforne close to the junction with Easton Square. Please click here to see a picture taken from this same spot over a century ago.

On the western side of Easton Square a large variety of shops and businesses have come and gone since this photograph was taken in 1989.

The Sugar Loaf Cafe stood next to a baker's shop.

Also in this row was Wessex Conveyancing, a butcher and a florist.


In the late 1980s it was decided to revive the Portland Carnival Procession but it didn't last long. At right above Doris Eastwood leads civic dignitaries into Easton Square followed by a magnificent steam engine owned by Peter Wallis of Gypsy Lane on Portland.

A decorated garage door that once livened up the area between Easton Square and Ladymead House in the late 1980s.

By 2002 this had been painted plain white.

This fashion for decorating garage doors was (I claim) started in 1974 when I painted a garage door in Radipole Lane.

This spread until there were over two dozen decorated doors in Weymouth and Portland.

Now - alas - almost all have reverted to boring old plain colours.

STRAITS - EAST OF EASTON SQUARE

In Straits which runs east from Easton Square lie a few shops on the south side of the road.

The building pictured above used to be Comben's Shoe Shop. On the original of this 1989 photograph the faded and peeling name above the windows can just be made out.

All that is left now is the name 'COMBEN' engraved on the glass in the door of this (now) private residence.

Shakey's Pork Scratchings are the only genuine and tasty examples I have found anywhere - and I'm a bit of a connoisseur of pork scratchings - as my expanding waistline testifies!

You may be surprised to learn that Shakey's Pork Scratchings contain a lower proportion of fat than some dry roast peanuts!

Here is Pete's Hardware - a remarkable 'Aladdin's Cave' where you will be sure of finding anything you want, no matter how obscure.

A brilliant shop - and there are all too few 'sell it all' shops now available in local communities.

Long may Pete survive against the over-priced poor service of B & Q!

The modern Public Library on the northern side of Straits now occupies the site of the old Reading Room.

Please click here to see a very old picture of Straits with the Reading Room on the left and here for an old picture of the Reading Room.

Please click here to see a very old picture of this row of buildings taken from the same spot in Straits.

The building with the porch was once the 'Swan Inn'.

TESCO DEVELOPMENT - SOUTH EAST OF EASTON SQUARE

1989	2002
1989	2008
What a difference 19 years can make when a building is neglected! The fine old office building above was part of the John Pearce Portland Stone Company Ltd yard which is in Park Street opposite the Health Centre a little to the south of Easton Square.

The areas of buildings and the stone yard shown in the above panoramic picture have been demolished and a TESCO supermarket is being built on the site - click here to read more. This is scheduled for opening early in 2011. This has caused great controversy with the population split between those who welcome a TESCO supermarket and those who loathe it.

The above panoramic picture was taken inside the ruined Bottomcombe Works late in 2007 now the site of the TESCO store.

The last sad remains of Bottomcombe Factory. Once this building was packed with men carving and cutting stone blocks. The noise from the hammers and the cutting machines must have been deafening.

Panoramic view of the TESCO store January 2011

A cinema once occupied the site of these houses before World War 2 a little south of Easton Square.

Another victim of changing shopping patterns - this antiques shop stood in 1989 on the corner of Grosvenor Road but was converted into a private house as photographed in 2003.

To the south of Easton square is a stone masonry yard where this scale model of a building facade stood in 1989.

The carved stones in the foreground were packed in polythene awaiting transportation by road for the real building.

EASTON STATION

The Weymouth to Easton railway line ran along here and the station was about where the building can be seen at the end of the path.

Please click here for many old pictures of Easton Station and the surrounding network of sidings, etc.

Opposite the above building is a tunnel - pictures below - which passes under Park Street. I would guess that very few people know about this tunnel but I located it by looking at this old map and spotting that trucks were once able to get from the works pictured above to the main railway line close to Easton Station.

This is at the point marked 'A' on the map.

The present Health Centre is on the site of the travelling crane close to the left of the 'A'.

The old railway tunnel opposite the Health Centre in Easton.

Now a dump for rubbish, it used to allow trucks laden with stone to reach the mainline railway close to Easton Station.

The above pictures were taken in 1999 and the picture at right in 2008. Soon there will be no sign that there ever was a railway tunnel here.

The disused railway bridge carrying Reforne over the abandoned railway line slightly north of the site of Easton Station.

The track of the railway siding which headed north from this bridge has now been taken over for gardens by local householders.

This somewhat whimsical central heating boiler building is built on the site of Easton Railway Station.

It serves Ladymead House, a residential home which also occupies the old station site.

Please click here for an old picture taken from close to this site. Note the building on the left in both pictures.

Clicking here shows an old view looking south from the bridge.

EASTON STREET - NORTH OF EASTON SQUARE

On the east side of Easton Square was the Stanley House Bistro photographed here in 1989.

It was widely famed for its excellent menu and presentation. The owners personally cooked and served the food.

In the 2000s it was owned by Carenza Heyhoe, a well-known artist as the Wellbeloved Gallery.

Just a little north of Easton Square we see Spreckley's toy and sweet shop closed and with a 'For Sale' sign in the window, photographed in 1989.

This was the sort of old-fashioned shop which was a delight to browse around and buy those odd things that were seemingly impossible to find elsewhere.

Please click here for old pictures of shops in this area.

This terrace of shops was once a butchers.

Please click here for an old picture of these shops.

The old fire station just off the east side of Easton Square in 1989.

This was abandoned when the new fire station was built in The Grove.

An attractive group of bungalows has now been built here.

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