In 1878 a horse-drawn tram service was proposed to serve parts of Gosport and Alverstoke. The Gosport Street Tramways Act, 1879 allowed Gosport Street Tramways Company two years to construct tramways of 4ft 8and a half inches gauge with a “total length of three miles and two furlongs” at an estimated cost of £18, 614. Fares were to be set initially at one penny a mile. In 1879, the Company bought the India Arms Hotel, a former coaching inn which had an archway giving access to stables and a yard. Services began in July 1882.

In 1903, a mass meeting of ratepayers persuaded the Council to agree to plans for electrifying the trams. The Gosport and Fareham Tramways Act received Royal Assent in August 1903 allowing a year for the reconstruction to a smaller gauge of 4ft 7 and three-quarter inches and the electrification of the line.

A new depot was built at Hoeford, ready in November 1904 to accommodate the electric trams. An electric tramcar passed through Gosport for the first time on 7 December 1905 and the service started on 24 January 1906, marking the end of horse-trams. The electric tram cars ran until 31 December 1929.

Gosport Hard was the terminus of the tram route with the main office at 88 High Street and stables nearby in The India Arms complex at 92-93 High Street (where there is a blue plaque on the wall). The India Arms, built in the early eighteenth century, was one of Gosport’s premier coaching inns during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Many of its patrons were naval personnel.

A horse tram operating on the original 3ft gauge track between Brockhurst and Gosport Hard (operational between 1882 and 1904). The Kings Head public house is shown on the left. The building still exists but is now a Spar supermarket. The large houses to the right of the photograph are still there. (GP1978.112) © Hampshire Museums Service