Southampton: the back story

About Southampton: the back story

By the ULTIMATE Brighton Editorial Team

Editor-in-Chief: Jai Michael

Southampton has lived by the sea for well over a thousand years: a Saxon trading town by the Itchen, a walled medieval port, the starting point of the Mayflower in 1620, the home of the great ocean liners and the birthplace of the Spitfire. It became a city in 1964.

Southampton stands where the rivers Test and Itchen meet at the head of Southampton Water, sheltered by the Isle of Wight. Few places in England have been shaped so completely by the tide. Walk from the Bargate down to Town Quay and you cross a thousand years of seafaring in a short stroll.

A Saxon port

The Romans had a settlement, Clausentum, at what is now Bitterne Manor. After they left, the Saxons built a planned trading town on the west bank of the Itchen, around today’s St Mary’s. Its name, Hamwic, later became Hamtun and then Hampton; excavations there have produced one of the finest collections of Saxon finds in Europe.

Check opening times and trains on the official sites before you travel.

Walls against the French

After the Norman Conquest the town moved west, to the higher ground above the Test, and between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries it was ringed with stone. A devastating French raid in 1338 hardened the defences: King Edward III ordered God’s House Tower, an early fort built for cannon and gunpowder. More than a mile of wall still survives, with over a dozen towers and several gates, the Bargate among them, and inside it merchants’ houses such as the one begun in about 1290 by John Fortin, who traded wine with Bordeaux.

The Mayflower

In 1620 the Pilgrim Fathers set sail from Southampton aboard the Mayflower. A memorial column on Western Esplanade, topped by a copper ship, marks the departure.

Liners, bananas and the Titanic

The Victorian docks made Southampton Britain’s gateway to the world. From the 1880s Fyffes landed bananas here from the West Indies, and the great liners sailed from its quays. On the morning of 10 April 1912 the Titanic left Southampton on her maiden voyage; her loss five days later touched almost every street in the city. Its story is told in our long read on the liners and at SeaCity Museum.

Spitfires and the Blitz

The Spitfire was designed and developed in Southampton, by the Supermarine company at Woolston, growing out of the Schneider Trophy seaplanes of the 1920s and 1930s. Solent Sky Museum calls itself the home of the Spitfire and the Empire flying boats. The city paid for its industry in the Blitz: the shell of Holyrood Church, damaged in the bombing, is now a memorial to merchant seafarers.

Southampton today

Southampton is now a great cruise port and a university city, with the Old Town inside its walls, Ocean Village marina, the Cultural Quarter around Guildhall Square and Westquay between them. In 1964 it was granted city status.

Our advice: start at the Bargate, walk the walls down to Town Quay, and save SeaCity Museum and the Titanic story for the afternoon.

Opening hours, prices and seasonal openings change, so please check with Southampton: the back story before you go.