Trafalgar House

Trafalgar House is a former YMCA building, dating from the late 19th century, featuring a mural painted in 1948 by Eric Rimmington. The front of the building was altered in the 1960s. It is a tall, three-storey and attic, three-bay structure made of terracotta and brick. The ground, first, and second storeys exhibit Victorian Gothic elements that have been stripped of architectural detail and rendered. Above these levels, there is a terracotta Lombardy frieze, with the balustrade removed, and a four-light window with an oculus in the gable. There are stacks on the left and right with truncated shafts.

Inside, the building contains late 19th-century staircases, one of which features an elaborate cast-iron balustrade. The main highlight of Trafalgar House is the painted mural located on the ground floor at the rear of the original building, in the lounge of the former Trafalgar House Services Club. This mural, painted by Rimmington, covers almost an entire wall and depicts an imaginary local scene with sailors in contemporary uniforms in the foreground, some carrying kit-bags, and young women, some with small children. The background is divided into three sections: on the right is an image of old Portsmouth town and harbour, in the centre is a park-like landscape with the Solent and Isle of Wight in the distance, and on the left appears to be Portsmouth Southsea Station. The mural includes a covered flight of stairs leading down to the central landscape, featuring sailing ships from the past in the Solent and Portsmouth harbour. The figures in the mural seem to be wistfully gazing out into the landscape, symbolizing a time when Britain was beginning to recover from the Second World War. This work is significant as an example of public mural painting from the immediate post-war period, reflecting themes of the War and local references to the naval base of Portsmouth, created by an emerging artist.