Tram Shelter (Now Madisons Cafe)

Early 20th-century former tram shelter, now used as Madisons Cafe, located at Market Square, Gunwharf Quays, Portsmouth. Originally built in the 1920s by David Rowell & Co. of Westminster, London, for Portsmouth Corporation, this shelter was constructed from panelled iron and glass with cast-iron column supports.

The shelter is aligned north-west to south-east and comprises 5 bays in width. The north and south ends are 6½ panels wide, with the upper half of each panel glazed as a window with rounded head, while the lower part is cast-iron featuring a raised ribbon band. The windows at either end are wider than the four central windows. The long west side is five bays wide, each bay divided by an iron column with a stylised composite capital. Each bay has six panels with a corresponding round-headed window above, except the bays at either end which have four panels and a door respectively. The east side similarly has five bays with six round-headed windows and panels in each, except for the central bay which has one to either side of a central double doorway. Each column has a moulded base inscribed "D. Rowell. London". The tiled hipped roof features projecting timber eaves with exposed rafters and timber fascia board, now carrying modern painted wood signage on each face.

Internally, the shelter is subdivided to provide a separate kitchen area. The roof contains iron roof trusses with tie rods over each pair of columns and a timber boarded ceiling.

Portsmouth's tramway system opened in May 1865 as Britain's first statutory street tramway, operated by the Landport & Southsea Tramways Company, running from Landport railway station through Portsmouth town centre to Clarence Pier at Southsea. Multiple tram companies subsequently operated routes, but by 1883 the Provincial Tramways Company Ltd. had consolidated them under the Portsmouth Street Tramways name. The Portsmouth Corporation Tramways Act of 1898 empowered the Corporation to purchase the lines within the borough, which it did on 1 January 1901. Financial losses in the corporation transport department led to replacement of trams by trolleybuses from 1934, with the last tram running on 10 November 1936.

In 1948 the shelter stood in Guildhall Square. It was dismantled, and two-thirds of it was used to construct a shelter in Cosham Compound near Cosham Railway Station. In July 2003 it was dismantled again due to vandalism and re-erected at Gunwharf Quays, where it now functions as Madisons Café. This and the shelter at Clarence Esplanade are the only remaining tram shelters in Portsmouth. The building is of architectural and technological interest for its decorative cast-iron work and holds historic significance as a rare surviving vestige of Portsmouth's tram era. It has group value with HMS Vernon, Ordnance Board Office Building No. 58, a late 18th-century structure approximately 85 metres to the south-west, and the perimeter walls of the former ordnance works dating to circa 1870, approximately 150 metres to the north-east.