Southsea

Southsea is what happens when a Victorian seaside resort refuses to accept the holiday ended. Henry VIII built a castle here and used it to watch his flagship sink, which set a tone the place has never really shaken: grand gestures, followed immediately by something going wrong in full public view. The Blitz took most of it, the rebuild took the rest, and what came back is a coastline where a Georgian villa, a mid-century block and a bar that used to be a chapel share a street and none of them apologise for it. People move here for the sea and stay for the reasons they would never put in writing.