English Heritage has a huge photographic collection of over seven million archive images of architecture, archaeology, local and social history. English Heritage has in the last year been posting many of the images in this collection on their own Tumblr, making them available for people to see and share & included in these published images are some from Portsmouth.

In recent weeks the English Heritage Tumblr has been posting up photos of Odeon cinemas from all over the UK, with their distinctive architecture and style. Portsmouth had some striking Odeon cinemas of its own including Southsea (which we profiled previously HERE) plus North End, which while no longer a cinema still is architecturally much the same. The EH Tumblr posted a fantastic photo of the North End Odeon Cinema from 1936, in all of its finery (see it HERE).

Another Portsmouth photo on the English Heritage Tumblr is of St Pauls Square from 1941, showing damage from the Portsmouth Blitz. This part of Portsmouth was devastated from the bombing, with much of it wiped off the map. This area is all now flats and houses built after the war, this photo gives a rare glimpse to what it looked like for many years before WW2.