In 1870-72, John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales described Landport like this:
LANDPORT, a suburb, two chapelries, and a sub-district in Portsea parish, Portsea Island district, Hants. The suburb adjoins Portsmouth on the NE; contains the terminus of the Southwestern, the South Coast, and the Portsmouth Direct railways; and has a post-office‡ under Portsmouth. It was formerly called Halfway-Houses; and it took that name from a public house, called the Halfway-House, on the spot now occupied by the Bed ford hotel. It owed its origin to the docks and the military; it derives its prosperity and its main support from the same sources; it comprises numerous dense and dingy streets, occupied by the working classes; and it presents, as a whole, an appearance far from interesting to strangers; yet it contains, between Mile-End and Kingston-Cross, and along the main thoroughfare on the London road, many houses of a superior class. ...