Spotlight On...Southampton

Medieval ruins galore in this city with a Titanic past

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On to today’s post…

I had recent cause to go to Southampton, a city I had never been to, and was more than pleasantly surprised by the sheer overflow of medieval remnants that litter this South Coast port. An overlooked jewel when one considers Britain’s most interesting medievalesque destinations, there is unquestionably more to Southampton than ferries to the continent, being the departure point of RMS Titanic on her only voyage, and Craig David.

Titanic in Southampton Harbour

Though I was in the city for footballing reasons, I knew I’d have several hours to burn once my train crawled into the station, and being by myself on a Sunday afternoon, the pub didn’t really appeal for once. Fortunately, as I would find out, Southampton had much to offer once I found my bearings.

First, a bit of basic history. A settlement in what is now Southampton likely dates to the prehistoric period, though we can be sure a Roman trading port known as Clausentum was established on a bend in the Itchen River in around 70 AD. After the Romans abandoned Britain in the early 5^th Century, the invading Anglo-Saxons re-founded a town on the other side of the river that was known as Hamwic, the name later evolving across the centuries to Hamtun and then Hampton. The new settlement soon grew prosperous through the exporting of wool, but would also attract the marauding Danish hordes in the 9^th and 10^th century, who inflicted great terror on the townsfolk.

After the advent of the Normans in England, the town gradually became known as Southampton, with some of the conquerors settling in the area. French Street, for example, still recalls their influence, and soon Norman innovation saw the construction of a formidable stone castle and a series of protective walls and gates.

Trade flourished once more and the port grew prosperous in subsequent centuries, importing French wine and Baltic timber and exporting cloth, wool, and every so often, English armies. Goods like fish, of course, were always in high domestic demand.

Many merchants grew rich and showcased their wealth and influence through the construction of impressive houses whilst tradesmen also earned a fair wage in the shipbuilding industry. Just like Titanic, however, the town wasn’t invincible.

In 1338, the French conducted a series of strategic military assaults on English coastal towns, with pirates also involved in raiding English ships. This was a response to Edward III’s claim that he was the rightful king of France, triggering a protracted conflict we remember as the Hundred Years’ War. In March, the defenceless Portsmouth was burned to the ground, whilst in October, after Guernsey and Sark had been targeted, it was Southampton’s turn.

On the morning of 5 October, more than fifty French ships landed near the town and scores of soldiers, not just French but also Italian and Castilian, flooded the streets, setting fire to houses and massacring those unfortunate to cross their paths, including women and children. Widespread panic ensued, the damage to property and life unfathomable. When Edward III visited the following year, he commanded that the town’s paltry defences were to be considerably strengthened to prevent such catastrophe again.

Southampton continued to be a port of vital importance throughout the fifteenth century, though kings rarely seemed to visit. Edward IV was one monarch who graced the streets of Southampton with his presence, however, and during his time here in March 1482 he was presented with a tun of sweet wine. During the reign of his brother Richard III, meanwhile, four men of Southampton notably supported the 1483 rebellion against a king many rejected. These were William Overey and Walter William, both former mayors, a yeoman named Roger Kelsale and a gentleman named John Fesaunt. All were attainted during Richard’s only parliament, their goods seized and lives declared forfeit, but all four would survive the king’s short reign and live to see the Tudors ascend the English throne.

Three years into his reign, Henry VII visited Southampton, stopping in the town in April as part of a southern progress that involved checking upon some Venetian ships moored in the quay. He returned in the summer of 1496 during his perambulation around the region, and again in 1499.

Though kings like Edward, Richard and Henry would, of course, be more than surprised by the general trappings of modernity should they somehow be able to wander through the streets of Southampton today, there is plenty they would recognise when not trying to master the pedestrian crossings.

Bargate

Upon emerging out of the railway station and heading south through the retail park, very quickly one happens upon BARGATE, for example, the striking northern gateway into the old town through which the great and good were treated to a ceremonial welcome.

The original stone and flint defensive structure, built around 1180, consisted of a single archway, though in the late thirteenth century this was augmented with two round towers and a series of arrow slits. In the 1400s, the north front was extended further to add battlements and machicolations, and from the reign of Henry VI onwards also began to serve as a prison. The lesser arches that flank the main entranceway were not added until 1764 and 1774.

The chamber above Bargate, admired more easily from the south side, was the town’s original Guildhall, serving as the administrative centre from which Southampton was governed. Plans to demolish the gateway in 1899, 1914 and 1923 fortunately came to naught, though it did lose the walls to either side. Remarkably, up until World War II later buildings were constructed right up to the gateway with trams running through the arch. The statue seen in the niche is George III, for some reason in Roman gear.

Town Walls

But, if there’s a gateway, this suggests that there were also TOWN WALLS, and fortunately there are indeed an abundance of navigable walls to explore. Just a short walk to the west of Bargate a stretch of wall comes into view, though punctured to accommodate a modern road. Southampton’s defences originally comprised a basic bank and ditch situation, but from the tenth century onwards wood and then stone were employed to strengthen the town’s protection. By the end of the fourteenth century, the stone structure which encircled Southampton consisted of nearly thirty towers and eight gateways.

Fortunately, at least half the well-preserved wall was retained whilst many similar structures throughout English towns were fully demolished in the early twentieth century to make way for modern transport requirements, and as many as thirteen of the towers still stand proudly.

The walls that remain can be picked up and followed near the WestQuay Shopping Centre. Wandering down the western esplanade, for example, the Arundel Tower can be admired from outside the walls before reaching the CASTLE WATERGATE, which as the name suggests once controlled access from the quay into the heart of town’s principal fortress, of which sadly next to nothing survives.

West Quay

The WEST QUAY, which this stretch of wall formed a boundary with, was of vital importance to the prosperity of medieval Southampton, with many merchants establishing their houses within the walls but with access to the waterfront. After the 1338 raid, the houses were dismantled and the town wall strengthened and filled in, creating the interesting arched ramparts now seen known as The Arcades.

Westgate

Continuing onwards, a more significant gateway is soon reached just after the Pig in the Wall restaurant - the WESTGATE. This was constructed after the devastating 1338 French raid, providing the principal access from the town to the West Quay and vice versa. The gate is notable for probably being the route through which large parts of Henry V’s army, and indeed possibly the king himself, passed when preparing to board their ships for what would prove a famous French military campaign in 1415. Likewise, the gate was used by the Pilgrims when boarding the Mayflower in August 1620, ready for their voyage to the New World. A pair of portcullis grooves can still be seen, as can a series of Tudor-era gunports on the upper levels.

Sitting adjacent and within the walls is an impressively restored cloth merchant’s hall, a three-storey timber-framed construction upon a sturdy stone rubble base. This is not actually in its original location, however, having been dismantled and removed from St Michael’s Square by an alderman in 1634 and rebuilt where it now stands, as though it was but mere Lego.

Watergate

Along the southern extension of the town fortifications, and past the very enchanting Dancing Man Brewery which is located in the 15th century Wool House, can be found the ruins of the town’s WATERGATE. Just like the Westgate, this provided access to and from the bustling main quay and was responsible for housing the officials who were tasked with collecting any customs duties due from trade.

The Watergate was erected during the fourteenth century, comprising a low pointed arch and a series of machicolations, and strengthened throughout the fifteenth. Not merely a watchtower, by the outbreak of the Wars of the Roses, the complex contained domestic accommodation, a warehouse and a shop and in later times would be reinvented as a prison and an inn.

Unlike Bargate or Westgate, Watergate did not escape the march of progress, and in part due to its dilapidated state was partially pulled down in 1804. Only the ruinous western tower remains and a connected annex that now forms part of the adjoining hotel.

God’s House Tower

Near to the Watergate is GOD’S HOUSE TOWER, probably the jewel in Southampton’s gleaming medieval crown. Fortunately for me, I was able to be shown around this remarkably preserved tower by battlefields guru and all-around top geezer, Julian Humphrys who shared his local knowledge.

Parts of this stone rubble tower, built to protect the southeastern portion of the town walls, date to 1189 and was named for Gervaise la Riche’s nearby hospital, a place for travellers to stay rather than in the modern sense. As with much in Southampton, however, much of the remarkably well-preserved three-story construction which stands today owes its origins to the tense rebuilding period after the French raid of 1338. This stouter gateway continued to be strengthened in the early fifteenth century and was even designed to carry cannon, then an innovative form of weaponry beginning to make itself heard. To this end, an entire floor was dedicated to the stocking of all kinds of artillery, cannon and gunpowder it was hoped could repel any fresh assault on the town.

Aside from its offense-is-the-best-form-of-defence role, the tower was also well placed for its garrison to assume responsibility to guard the sluice gates which in turn controlled the flow of water into the town moat at high tide. In later centuries, once the threat of invasion had abated, it was repurposed as a debtors prison and mortuary. Today, it has been completely modernised inside and serves as an art and heritage venue, complete with museum and café. The rooftop viewing platform is a must.

St Julien’s Tower

The God’s House Tower represents where the town walls, and therefore the boundaries of the medieval town itself, turn north, though most of this stretch has been lost to time. The site of the walls can still be found in the street name ‘Back of the Walls’. Heading through the God House arch, then, brings you within the walled town to Winkle Street where the prominent squat, square-towered ST JULIEN’S CHURCH can be found, once a chapel belonging to the no longer surviving God’s House Hospital.

At its peak, the hospital was a thriving community, consisting of wardens, priests, monks, sisters, a handful of poor people, plus cooks, surgeons, maids, brewers and the other workers needed to keep the place running. Travellers and pilgrims would also have routinely passed through the doors, being offered refuge or medical aid if required. Indeed, St Julien was the patron saint of travellers and wayfarers.

In 1343, Edward III granted the hospital to The Queen’s College, Oxford, and as they remain the owners of the church all these years later, their arms can still be seen on the gates leading to the residents’ entrance to the almshouses. At least one queen of England, Henry VI’s wife Margaret of Anjou, spent some time here.

There is another interesting royal connection that St Julien’s possesses. In August 1415, as Henry V’s vast English army prepared themselves for their voyage from Southampton to France for a campaign that would earn them immortality, a plot against the king was revealed. The basic gist is that Henry V was to be assassinated and replaced upon the throne by Edmund Mortimer, 5th Earl of March, who had good cause to be considered the senior claimant to the English throne after the overthrow of Richard II back in 1399. Mortimer himself claimed to have been shocked at this, and gave up the details to Henry V.

The three ringleaders were rounded up, subjected to a trial in the castle, found guilty by their peers, executed outside Bargate, and buried in St Julien’s – one of those was Richard of Conisburgh, Earl of Cambridge, who was not only Mortimer’s brother-in-law, but grandfather of two men who did eventually become kings of England through their Mortimer blood – Edward IV and Richard III. The House of York were never far from trouble, were they?

The hospital escaped confiscation during the English Reformation on account of its connection with the college rather than the Catholic Church, and would be where waves of Huguenots would seek sanctuary during the reign of Elizabeth I. Because of their regular patronage of the St Julien’s, it became known as the French church – indeed, it is for this reason the church is referred to using the French variant of Julian. Though the hospital was finally demolished in 1861, St Julien’s was restored, rebuilt, and remains standing today.

Canute’s Palace

Near St Julien’s and just behind the Watergate on Porter’s Lane is CANUTE’S PALACE, neither a palace nor connected to King Canute but worth stopping by for a few moments. Far from being the Dane King of England’s residence, this is the ruined shell of a two-storeyed Norman merchant’s house, which by the fifteenth century was being used as part of the royal Customs House.

Medieval Merchant’s House

Up French Street and past the Weigh House can be found the MEDIEVAL MERCHANT’S HOUSE, a timber-fronted building noticeable for the tun suspended from a protruding post. The house is somewhat incongruously next to a modern housing estate, but I actually like the disparity, a visual reminder that progress and time awaits no person.

Now sympathetically restored and operated by English Heritage, the house was built in the last decade of the thirteenth century by John Fortin, another Southampton figure who had grown wealthy through commercial trade. There once was many of these houses along this stretch of street, now all sadly lost to the ravages of time.

The house passed through many hands over the centuries, including a private home, a Victorian public house, and even a wartime brothel. During the Blitz in World War II, German bombing damaged part of the house and revealed some of the medieval interior, prompting local civic support to rescue and restore the property. Now open to the public to inform and educate, the living history ethos allows visitors to visualise life in the House as it would have been six hundred years ago, complete with hall, bedchambers and shop front.

Be sure to check out the atmospheric undercroft, which once stored copious barrels of wine, the sale of which above ground funded such a comfortable building to house its trader and his family.

Tudor House

Creeping along the alleyway which runs adjacent to the Medieval Merchants House brings you to Bugle Street, turning right on which enters St Michael’s Square. No pointers are needed to be given at this stage to TUDOR HOUSE, a late fifteenth century building that dominates the square.

The man responsible for this beautiful home was the prosperous Sussex landowner Sir John Dawtrey, who in 1492 during the reign of Henry VII invested some of his wealth to begin the conversion of three separate cottages into one not-so-humble abode. Dawtrey made his money from trade and over time accumulated quite the portfolio of property in the city as well as periodically serving as sheriff and a customs official, handling significant amounts of money on behalf of the crown. Also involved in the construction of the Mary Rose ship, he was knighted by Henry VIII for his services in 1516.

When Dawtrey died in November 1518, his House passed to his second wife, and subsequently was taken over by the family of her second husband, the Listers. Across the centuries, the House has been repurposed many times but thankfully the basic Tudor structure remains, including the oak-panelled banqueting hall that once played host to the great and good of sixteenth century Southampton society.

The House underwent considerable restoration during the first decade of the twentieth century, to which its well-preserved Tudor form is owed. Since 1912, Tudor House has hosted an interesting museum that tells the history of the building across the centuries and its place within Southampton’s story, whilst outside a Tudor-style garden can be gently explored when in full bloom. In many ways, a remarkable survivor where many similar houses across the country have long been brought tumbling down through generational neglect.

If you need a refreshment break along the way, you can do worse than the DUKE OF WELLINGTON, which seems to have been a pub in one guise or another since at least the reign of Henry VII, though the name, of course, is inspired by a much later historical figure. There is, as well, a pub called THE TITANIC which though not medieval, IS situated on a street called Simnel Street. Or should that be Warwick Street? IYKYK. Not Edward V Street though, I’m not buying that theory.

This is by no means a comprehensive list of Southampton’s medieval wonders. I’d suggest Southampton deserves to be ranked alongside the Yorks and the Norwichs when one considers British cities with a tangible medieval legacy we can still physically see, touch, experience and understand. And being on the south coast, the weather is invariably better too.

So, next time you’re in the area, pop in for a wander!