Many years ago, when pubs sat on almost every street and were largely the centre of communities, one pub made annual plans for a day out in a horse-drawn charabanc.

Donned in their best clothes, bowlers hats and straw boaters, they all gathered outside the Bridge Tavern in Cracknore Road, Freemantle for the photograph above before setting off on their merry travels.

The roads were made of gravel and water lorries would regularly spray the surface to keep the dust down. Kids would run out and play in the water and get wet.

It was a community pub were everyone knew each other and met up for a chat, a place which was said to have had a “real community spirit”.

Many of the old stokers who were crew on the great Southampton transatlantic liners such as the Aquitania and Mauretania lived in the streets near the pub and when they were home or on leave they would congregate there. They would gather in the bar and swap stories about their times at sea.

The watering hole closed its doors for the last time on April 5, 1974 after having a licence since 1869, and has since been converted into houses.

In the early 1900s the pub belonged to Scrase Star Brewery, it later became the property of Strong’s Romsey Brewery, and was taken over by the Whitbread Group in 1969. In its early days the pub was known as the Railway Bridge Inn, after the nearby footbridge over the London to Bournemouth railway track.