The Clock Tower (A Fleming Southsea Ltd)

The Clock Tower, Castle Road, Southsea

A distinctive building designed by WJ Walmsley around 1903, originally built as an antiques shop. It features ornamental panelled timber framing with stucco infill and brick in Flemish bond, topped by a plain clay tiled roof with three brick chimney stacks, each capped with moulded stone and bearing groups of tall moulded clay chimney pots.

The building is two storeys with an attic to the centre, arranged across three wide bays. The entrance, set within a splayed corner where the building meets Great Southsea Street, comprises a two-leaf half-glazed door with decorative overlight featuring intersecting curved glazing bars and a diamond leaded light panel. The door is flanked by Ionic wooden pilasters with chevron moulded shafts set within recessed panels. At each corner of the entrance stand ornate figure heads manufactured in the dockyard. A band fascia and cornice runs above.

The first floor features a prominent tripartite transomed oriel with front and flanking two-light diamond leaded casements, a shaped wooden apron, and pediments—a curved one over each flanking casement and a straight one over the centre. The most striking feature is the tall octagonal timber-framed tower base supporting a square clocktower, with a bracket at each corner. The clock face appears on all four sides of the tower, each topped with a curved wooden pediment over the bezel, cornice, and a scalloped lead swept tented roof with weathervane. In place of conventional numerals, the clock bears the letters ERNEST SMITH.

The right return facing Castle Road displays two large shop windows, each divided by a slim colonnette with shaped brackets and rope moulding to the lower half. The top lights incorporate leaded lights with stained glass. To the right is a former door opening, now infilled in the 20th century, flanked by Ionic pilasters similar to the entrance and surmounted by a rounded pedimental entablature with shell relief in the tympanum. Further right are two two-light transomed wooden casements with leaded lights and stained glass, each within an eared and shouldered stone architrave topped with a stone cartouche. The left cartouche bears the initials ES and the motto "Ne Cade Malis Sed Contra", while the right carries "anno domini 1903".

The first floor on the left and right sides contain four-light transomed casements with diamond leaded lights and stained glass over the transom, set within a timber frieze. At the centre is a shallow oriel with a similar four-light transomed casement at front and narrow flanking casements; the front section has been replaced with 20th-century casements. The attic level has a similar but shorter four-light casement without transom, set within a gable with projecting verge and bargeboards. The elevation facing Great Southsea Street is comparable in treatment.

The interior remains unaltered from its original design.

The building was constructed as an antiques shop and was leased by Ernest Smith, who died in 1922. The Ford Motor Company subsequently took over the lease, converting it into a car showroom with the upper floor used as a flat. Around 1941, the present occupant, A Fleming Southsea Ltd, took over the lease. The building continues to function as an antiques shop today.