Southampton’s Chapel Area – A Hundred Years of the Past

Southampton’s Chapel Area – 100 Years of the Past revives each of its three dozen streets and tells their history with maps, photographs and the odd anecdotes of its more colourful characters

An established author of several books on railways and local history, Dave Marden now writes about the place where he was born and brought up.

It is now half a century since Southampton’s Chapel area was swept away. A square half mile of tightly packed terrace houses had evolved on barren marshland and timber ponds to house the workers needed for the docks and railways from the mid 1800s

Most of Chapel disappeared in the 1960s when the rush for regeneration saw dozens of streets erased from history and their thousands of residents dispersed to estates on the town boundaries.

Virtually nothing of the old district remains but the memories linger on for those who experienced life there in a close knit community that grew together for generations.

About the Author

An established author of several books on railways and local history, Dave Marden now writes about the place where he was born and brought up. As a native Sotonian, having been born in the city’s Chapel area and educated locally at both Ascupart Junior (now St Mary’s) and Central Secondary schools, he spent his entire career working in the Port of Southampton before retirement.

While growing up in the post war years and in the 1950s, he remembers much of his home town as it was before the major redevelopments of the 1960s when so many of the old streets and communities were cleared away in the name of progress and modernisation. 

For more information about Dave Marden see his 'Meet Our Authors' page:

https://www.jmdmedia.co.uk/pages/dave-marden-southampton