Sotonopedia

Aslatt's coach works (image 1) was situated on the corner of Above Bar and Aslatt’s Cut, a narrow lane that led from Above Bar Street to West Marlands, approximately where Civic Centre Road now is. The company was founded by John Aslatt (image 4) in the early 19th century and was continued by his youngest son, Henry Poate Aslatt, into the 1890s. The Aslatt showroom faced Above Bar Street, and in front of it was a weighbridge on which the coaches were weighed. The Aslatt family lived in a house The Weighbridge to the rear of the showroom (image 3). The workshops, which included a blacksmith's shop, a paint shop, a wheelwright's and an upholstery loft, were adjacent to the house on a site that was later occupied by part of the Grand Theatre. The Weighbridge house was also incorporated into the theatre after the death of Henry Poate Aslatt in 1905.

Aslatt’s appear to have ceased trading in the 1890s and the lower part of the showroom was leased to London and South Western Railway as a ticket office (image 2). The railway company continued to use the weighbridge on Above Bar Street to weigh freight carts. Form 1920 to 1923 the building housed the Clock Tower Cinema, named from the clock tower that formerly stood at the junction of Above Bar and New Road.

1. Aslatt's Coach Factory

Philip Brannon’s view of Above Bar Street, showing Aslatt’s factory in the right foreground, c.1850

2. London and South West Railway Office, Above Bar Street

The former coach factory after conversion to a railway ticket office, c.1900.

3.The Weighbridge, Civic Centre Road

The Weighbridge was the Aslatt’s family home and was later part of the Grand Theatre.

John Aslatt

Contemporary drawing of John Aslatt, founder of the Above Bar coach building business.

Newspaper clippings (online or available at the Local Studies Library):

Occasional Notes - (SDE)

"Link with old Soton is severed" (Southern Daily Echo, 12/03/1968). Reports on the life of Percy Aslatt (died in 1968), son of Francis Aslatt.

Further reading:

Southampton Occasional Notes (2nd Series), by ‘Townsman’, p71. (HS/h)

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