Trafalgar House

774-1/0/10019 EDINBURGH ROAD 10-JUN-02 Trafalgar House

II

Former YMCA premises, containing mural painting. Circa late C19; mural painting of 1948 by Eric Rimmington; front of building altered 1960s. Tall 3-storey and attic 3-bay building in terracotta and brick; the Victorian Gothic ground, first and second storeys stripped of architectural detail and rendered; above there is a terracotta Lombardy frieze, the balustrade removed, and a 4-light window with an oculus in the gable above; stacks to left and right with truncated shafts. INTERIOR: Late C19 staircases, one with elaborate cast-iron balustrade. The principal interest of the building is a painted mural on the ground floor at the rear of the original building, in the lounge of the former Trafalgar House Services Club, painted in 1948 by Eric Rimmington. The mural occupies almost the whole of one wall of the room. It comprises an imaginary local scene, with sailors in contemporary uniform in the foreground, some with kit-bags. Most of the other figures are young women, some with small children. The background of the painting is divided into three parts; on the right old Portsmouth town and harbour; at the centre a park-like landscape with the Solent and Isle of Wight in the distance; and on the left what appears to be Portsmouth Southsea Station. There is a covered flight of stairs down to the central landscape. The ships on the Solent and in Portsmouth harbour are sailing ships from the past. The figures at the centre appear to be wistfully looking out into the landscape and it is thought to represent a period when Britain was beginning its long recovery from the Second World War. The work is of considerable interest as an example of public mural painting of the immediate post-Second World War period, with its allusions to the War and local references to the naval base of Portsmouth, by an interesting young artist. SOURCES: Information provided by the artist Eric Rimmington.