Forton Lodge, Gosport - Watercolour by Martin Snape

Martin Snape (1852-1930)
Forton Lodge, Gosport

watercolour, signed and dated 1922

Framed and glazed in our studio with conservation materials

Overall dimensions including frame: 52.1 x 64.1 cm

This fine watercolour depicts Forton Lodge, an attractive Georgian house that stood within six acres of gardens and orchards on Forton Road in a position between Ferrol Road and Parham Road. An advert for the house, when sold in 1892, records there being three reception rooms, nine bedrooms, a coach house, stable and various outbuildings.

At the time that Martin Snape painted this picture in 1922, the house was inhabited by John Leonard Parham JP (1864-1955), a long serving Councillor and Alderman of Gosport who was only the third person to be made a Freeman of the Borough. Mr Parham and Martin Snape would have been well known to each other, both being actively involved in public life within the town.

John Leonard Parham had inherited Forton Lodge, along with a decent estate, from his father John Griffin Parham (1836-1918) who had founded the company Parham & Sons Limited, wholesale provisions merchants. The company’s warehouse building stood prominently adjacent to Forton Lodge on the corner of what became Parham Road. The business was sold after his death, becoming I.K.C. wholesalers and later Wheeler’s timer dealers and was only demolished in recent years.

Another earlier resident of Forton Lodge was the Reverend James Tanner (1801-1888), who was Vicar of St Matthew’s Church for 39 years until his death. St Matthew’s was a prominent parish in Gosport until WW2 and stood roughly on the site of the Rope Quays development. The area was heavily redeveloped in the 1950s. After the death of John Leonard Parham in 1955, Forton Lodge itself was sadly demolished and the site became Young’s Garage for many years. In the 1980s the site was further developed into flats known also as “Forton Lodge”.