Portswood Rec

Two pictures of Portswood rec park, one of a garden and some buildings, the other showing an open space with some trees and clear skies.

Portswood Rec is a 1.9 hectare, multiple-use park accessed via Upper Grosvenor Road, Brickfield Road or Kitchener Road.

Facilities

Two all-weather tennis courts
Separate dog exercise area
Football goal with small area of AstroTurf
Children's play area
Central open area for sport and events, also used by local schools for sports
Community garden with picnic benches
Areas managed for wildlife
Friends Group – The Friends of Portswood Rec

Getting there

If you are planning on visiting Portswood Rec by car it may not be easy to find on your sat nav. Some nearby postcodes are SO17 3SG (Kitchener Road) or SO17 1WZ (Upper Grosvenor Road). The Rec doesn’t have its own car park, and a residents parking scheme is in operation in surrounding roads, but you can park for up to two hours without a residents parking permit.

See a map showing the location of Portswood Rec.

Our What3words location is chose.relax.lamp.

Further information

‘The Rec’ was originally part of the Highfield Estate and is tucked away in a densely populated area of the city close to the University of Southampton.

In the early 1900s the site was home to the brickworks that manufactured the bricks used to build the houses that surround the park. The disused brickworks site was compulsorily purchased by the council in 1931 and under pressure from residents plans to landscape the area and create a park were drawn up in 1935.

Since 2012, the Rec has been protected in perpetuity by Fields In Trust as part of their Queen Elizabeth II programme marking the Diamond Jubilee of HM The Queen. The play area was revamped in 2015 following the Friends group’s successful grant application to Veolia Environmental Trust and the tennis courts were resurfaced in 2018 funded in part by a grant the group obtained from Southern Water.

In recent years the landscaped community garden has been reinstated and planted with native shrubs and plants to attract moths, butterflies, and bees. Two small meadow areas have been created and other wildlife features installed. An active Friends group organises regular gardening activities and occasional litter picks and events.

The Rec was awarded a Green Flag in 2021 and the Council, in conjunction with the Friends group, was awarded the DEFRA and Keep Britain Tidy Bees Needs Community Champion Award in recognition of projects to encourage bees and other insects at the park.