Descriptive gazetteer entries

These other entries in our collection of descriptive gazetteers are also about Portsmouth. You may be able to find further references to Portsmouth in the descriptive gazetteers by doing a full-text search here.

Place	Type of entry	Source
PORTSMOUTH	a seaport town, with great naval arsenal, and with spacious fortified harbour	Imperial

Travel writing

This website includes the complete texts of books describing journeys around Britain, written between the twelfth and nineteenth centuries. Selecting one of the links below will take you to the first reference to Portsmouth within the selected text. This will not always be a description of a visit: travellers often mention places other than where they are, for example as a basis for comparison.

Traveller	Section	No. of Refs.
Daniel Defoe	Letter 2, Part 3: Hampshire and Surrey	24
Henry Broadhurst	In Journeyings Often	4
William Cobbett	Oct. 18th to 26th, 1826: Weston to Kensington	4
Daniel Defoe	Letter 2, Part 2: Canterbury and Sussex	4
Celia Fiennes	Hampshire and the Isle of Wight	4
Robert Gammage	Hampshire, Lancashire, and final reflections	4
John Wesley	1751-3: Wesley's Marriage; Cornwall Smugglers; Illness and Recovery	3
William Camden	Wiltshire and Hampshire	1
William Cobbett	Aug. 5th to 10th, 1823: Hampshire and Surrey	1
William Cobbett	Nov. 7th to 11th, 1825: Burghclere to Petersfield	1
William Cobbett	Oct. 18th, 1826: Lyndhurst to Godalming	1
Daniel Defoe	Letter 1, Part 2: Harwich and Suffolk	1
Daniel Defoe	Letter 3, Part 3: From Exeter to Land's End	1
Daniel Defoe	Letter 5 (London), Part 2: The City	1
Daniel Defoe	Letter 7, Part 2: East Midlands	1
Robert Gammage	On tramp in 1840, from London to the south coast	1
John Wesley	1769-70: Opens a New Church; Comments on Rousseau; Geology; Swedenborg	1
John Wesley	1771-3: Windsor Park; Wesley as Art Critic; Glasgow and Perth; Preaches to 30,000 People	1
John Wesley	1777-80: On the Isle of Man; City Road Chapel; Wesley Visits Lord George Gordon	1
John Wesley	1785-90: Collects Money for the Poor; Visits House of Lords; Reasons for his Long Life	1
Karl Moritz	Chapter 7: St. Paul's Cathedral	1

This website includes two large libraries, of historical travel writing and of entries from nineteenth century gazetteers describing places. We have text from these sources available for these places near your location:

Place	Mentioned in Travel Writing	Mentioned in Hist. Gazetteer
Southsea	0	2
Gosport	8	2
Burrow Island	0	2
Landport	0	2
Portsea	0	3
Fratton	0	2
Kingston	0	2
Anglesey	0	2
Forton	0	2
Milton	0	2
Eastney	0	1
Stokes Bay	0	2
Alverstoke	0	2
Elson	0	2
Spithead	0	2
Salterns	0	2
Hilsea	0	2
Rowner	0	2
Wymering	0	2
Paulsgrove	0	2