Investing in our city's heritage

History

The core of the Bargate dates from the Norman period, likely between 1180 and 1200. The Bargate at this point would have been a two-storey stone gate tower that formed the principal north entrance into the medieval town. Inside the central gateway can be seen the original rounded arch.

Initially Southampton used a defence system of ditches and earthen banks around the landward (north and east) sides. In the 13th century stone walls were added to the banks around the landward side, and in the 14th century stone walls were built around the seawards (south and west) sides. At some point during the late 13th century, the Bargate was extended and largely rebuilt, possibly while the northern town wall was built. It was at this point that two drum towers were added and a large first floor hall was created. This first floor hall was used as the Guildhall from that time until 1888. Possibly at the same time, the Bargate was extended to east and west, the east part eventually functioning as the prison.

In the late 14th century, after the French raid, the Bargate was extended to the north, projecting further than the earlier drum tower extensions, and with a higher parapet featuring crenellations and machicolations. Many further extensions and alterations were carried out in the centuries since. The bell in the top south west corner of the building was added in 1605 and was used to signify curfew and alarms. In the late 18th century pedestrian routes were added to either side of the main gateway, each with their own arches, and there are many Victorian renovations and restorations to the building.

The section of the town walls to the west of the Bargate was removed in the early 20th century to accommodate a police station. Due to an increase in traffic and the introduction of trams, the police station and a section of the town walls to the east of the Bargate were removed in the 1930’s, with only a very small section of wall now still attached on either side. In 1951 the building became the Bargate Museum. While the museum itself has now closed inside the building are the wooden statue of Queen Anne, which once sat where the statue of George III now stands, and two large oak panels depicting Sir Bevois and the giant Ascupart, which likely date from around 1594 and were once attached to the buttresses on the north elevation.

From 2005-2012 the building was leased by ‘a space arts’ who fitted-out the first floor to create the Bargate Monument Gallery, the internal partitioning from this period was removed in 2022.

Medieval shields

We are often asked where the medieval shields on the north face of the Bargate have gone. It is a complex issue that goes back over 50 years! They were carved in the 1380s from Ventnor Stone, which weathers badly.

The shields have decayed, and the damaged areas were repaired with mortar, painted with heraldic designs, and repainted as necessary. They had a major refurbishment in 1946. In 1971 the old roof was replaced with a flat concrete roof. This might be when the problem we are dealing with today really started. The problem was that the rain was getting into the parapet somehow and the north face has not been able to dry out properly for decades.

The 1946 repainting lasted until 1998 when an historic buildings conservator replaced the damaged areas of the shields and repainted the designs. The special paint was supposed to last 20 years, but within five years, much of it had gone and the mortar repairs had begun to drop off. There have been three attempts to solve the problem, the last in 2023. Let us hope this, and the further work on the roof in 2024, will allow the stone to dry out so that the shields can be rebuilt and repainted once again.

Holy Rood Church stands on the corner of Bernard Street and High Street. Located in the centre of medieval Southampton, the church remains an important focal point.

Holy Rood Church today is a ruin, with an impressive medieval tower and chancel. The entrance to the church is through the west door in the fire-damaged, mid-19th century west end. The interior is mostly one large space, as the nave arcades fell after the church was burnt in the Southampton Blitz.

The chancel retains its walls. The north and south walls contain medieval windows, but all the glass has gone. The north windows were blocked when the vicarage was built in the mid-16th century. The east end of the chancel has a large window below ornate tracery. Underneath this is an elaborate, now badly worn, mid-19th century reredos.

The north aisle wall was largely rebuilt in the 1950s. At the west end there is a window blocked with bricks externally and stone internally. Externally, there are areas of ‘diaper’ patterned brickwork, the last remnants of the 16th century ‘great house’ that was built on the site of the vicarage.

The tower occupies the south west corner. The ground floor is open to the north and east and contains a memorial to the crew of the Titanic that was relocated to Holy Rood from Southampton Common in April 1972. The reinforced concrete upper floors are accessed via a stone spiral staircase in the southwest corner of the tower. The spire was lost in 1940.

Externally, either side of the main entrance are marble plaques to 22 ‘disinterested men’ who lost their lives in 1837 when clearing a burning warehouse at the south end of the High Street.

Outside of the church to the south of the chancel, are the Taunton tombs. Richard Taunton was a wealthy 17th century Southampton merchant who left money to found a school to train boys for a career at sea. The family tombs were originally located in St John’s Churchyard but were moved to Holy Rood in 1958.

History

The church was built in 1320, to replace the old Church of Holyrood or St Cross which originally stood in the middle of the High Street in front of its present position. Holy Rood was regarded as the Town Church, it was the church of the Town Mayors, and it is where the assembly bell was rung in the early morning and at night. In 1558 it became known as the ‘Sailors Church’ due the many sailors who lived in the parish.

The building has seen many additions and alterations during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, including a western porch, a number of adjoining shops and properties and galleries at first floor level. In 1849-50 the church was heavily remodelled, and the west elevation was mostly rebuilt.

In November 1940, the Church was burnt out during an air raid. The spire and most of the Victorian work was destroyed, with the tower and underlying medieval parts largely surviving. The stonework was heavily fire damaged. It was planned to restore the church but over the years the arcades and north and south walls collapsed.

In the 1950s, the ruins were purchased from the Church of England and a public appeal raised money to partially restore the ruins. The clock was replaced with a new mechanism and the old quarter-jacks, which had been in storage, were returned. The church was dedicated as a Memorial to the Merchant Navy, in which service many Southampton people had lost their lives.

A Heritage Lottery funded programme of repairs to the tower, new railings, lighting, and a landscaping scheme, together with a lightweight glass roof over the chancel, was carried out between 2002 and 2006.

A memorial service is held each year on Merchant Navy Day. Holy Rood has become home to a number of memorials, and the space is used for events and temporary exhibitions.

Repairs to Southampton Castle in 2024 include:

• Caste Hall
• Castle Vault

History

Southampton Castle was built by the Normans as a motte and bailey type castle overlooking the western Town Walls. By the late 12th century, it had been almost entirely converted to stone.

The castle fell into disrepair throughout the 13th century, but with the imminent threat of French invasion King Richard II had the castle restored and improved. From then on, the castle thrived with visits from many notable royalties.

The castle declined again throughout the 16th century and after 1518 no further money was spent on repairing the castle. During the late 19th century and early 20th century, much of what remained of the castle was lost due to redevelopment and bombing during the war.

Castle Hall, Western Esplanade

The largest remaining building of the castle, Castle Hall was built sometime between 1100 and 1150 as a ‘first floor hall house’. The gaps in the wall for the original floor timbers can still be seen in the east wall.

The building was heavily altered in the 13th Century, with the first-floor timber removed and a stone vault constructed in its place. Two large doorways in the west wall of the vault allowed wine to be brought in from the Castle Quay. The doorways were blocked after the 1338 French raid and converted to gun emplacements.

Castle Vault, Western Esplanade

Castle Vault was built in the late 12th century to the north of Castle Hall and is the only part of the Castle buildings to have survived intact up to the present day. Originally there was also an upper storey and roof. The vault was built with eight ribs supported on sixteen decorated corbels. The ribs have been removed but four of the corbels are relatively intact.

The vault served as secure storage for the King’s wines, the ‘King’s prize’, by which the king collected 10% of all the wine imported into England. The King’s butler in Southampton curated the wine and dispatched it to the various royal castles and palaces where it was needed. During the 13th Century the vault was known as ‘King’s Cellar’ or ‘King’s Vault’. The vault was then blocked up for many years until the original Norman doorway was unblocked around 1890.

During World War II it was used as an air raid shelter for up to two hundred people and had brick blast walls and a toilet added which have subsequently been removed.

The sections being repaired in 2024 include:

• Arundel Tower to Forty Steps
• Forty Steps to Garderobe Tower
• Westgate Hall to Square Tower

The Town Walls include:

• Town Wall: Section 75 yards west of Bargate to Arundel Tower
• Forty Steps
• Garderobe Tower
• Section from Garderobe Tower to Castle Hall
• William Nicholl Tower
• William Nicholl Tower to Westgate
• Section from Westgate to South Arcades
• Section from Simmel Street to Blue Anchor Postern to William Nicholl Tower

History

The Town Walls largely date back to the 14th Century, built to protect the medieval town of Southampton from attack by the French. Construction of the rampart defences was started around 1202-3 and they were added to over the following three hundred years. Englefield’s 1805 book ‘A Walk Through Southampton’, gives the total circuit of the walls as 2,200 yards or 1.25 miles, around half of which are still standing today.

The Norman town of Southampton was only protected on the landward (north and east) sides, and these fortifications would have taken the form of banks and ditches. By around 1200 two gateways had been built - the earliest part of the Bargate in the North Wall and the Eastgate (which was demolished in 1775) in the East Wall. The North and East walls were likely rebuilt in stone beginning towards the south in the early 13th Century and completed during a period of extensive building works between 1260 and 1290, protecting the town from landward attack.

The earliest section of sea-facing walls is that which made up Southampton Castle walls, built during the 12th Century. Following the French raid of 1338, Edward II ordered improvements to the town’s defences including the building of stone walls on the west and south sides of the town, so that by the late 14th Century the town was completely enclosed by stone walls. The majority of this was newly built walls, but one section of the western wall, which now forms The Arcades, was originally a series of merchant’s houses constructed in the 12th and 13th Century. During this 14th Century rebuilding the windows, doors and lanes between the houses were infilled - evidence of this can still be seen in the walls - and arcading constructed on the seaward side of the wall to support the machicolations. Two sections of arcades exist today - one between

Simnel Street and King John’s Palace, and the other to the southwest corner of the town walls, just north of Cuckoo Street.

The completed walls featured twenty-nine towers, of which thirteen survive, and eight gates from which you could enter or exit the medieval town, of which six survive. The walls were backed by an earth rampart, and incorporated a wall walk in some parts.

From the 17th Century onwards, the town walls became less important as a defensive structure, and parts of the wall began to be demolished or fell into disrepair. Several of the towers and gates were altered to fit new purposes. In 1853, the ‘Forty Steps’, also known as Albion Steps, were built to allow the public down onto the foreshore following its reclamation and the construction of the Western Esplanade Road. In the late 19th and early 20th century further sections of wall were demolished to ease congestion and allow new access routes into the medieval town.

Description

Canute’s Palace is the name given to the remains of a late 12th century, two-storey, upper hall house located in Town Quay Park. It is on the north side of Porters Lane, northeast of the Watergate. To the east, only low walls around one metre high remain. To the west the remains are more substantial with much of it rising to two storeys.

The walls are built of stone from the Isle of Wight and Caen.

History and archaeology

The building was constructed between 1160 and 1200, predating the town walls and replacing a smaller, earlier timber building. It was a merchant’s house and warehouse, 34 metres long by 8 metres wide, and the merchant was probably of considerable wealth. The door at ground level gave access to a basement divided into two compartments, and an upper door gave access to a first-floor hall. Archaeological excavation within the west compartment found a limekiln from the time of the original construction.

In July 1421, William Soper, ship builder, merchant, MP, and twice mayor, acquired Canute’s Palace and a nearby quay. During this period, the building and the corner tenement to the west were used as the King’s Customs House. By 1454 Soper had expanded into many of the buildings nearby, including the Watergate. At some point during the fifteenth century, a stairway was inserted into the north east corner of Canute’s Palace, which gave access to Maynard’s Vault (previously known as Canute’s Palace Vault) to the east. At the same time the west wall of the vault was rebuilt. Canute’s Palace remained the Custom’s House until 1519/20 when a new one was built to the east of the Watergate.

In 1805, Henry Englefield suggested the building was old enough to have been of the time of King Canute, and that it had ‘the appearance of being a magnificent dwelling or palace’, and the name stuck. It has also been called Canute’s Cottage. At some point before 1846, a dividing wall was inserted into the building, and the space between the two walls formed an alleyway that led from Porter’s Lane into the yards to the north. The central part was converted into a dwelling in the 19th century, with the stone north and south elevations being rebuilt in brick to include windows. By 1900 it was being used as a coal warehouse by Haddon & Beavis coal merchants.

The building was badly damaged in the Southampton Blitz of 1940, at which point it, along with the Waterman’s Arms at 86 High Street, was owned by Winchester College. The restoration in the 1960s involved demolition of the post-Norman accretions and was part of a wider plan for the new Town Quay Park, some of which was never completed. During the restoration the west gable collapsed and was rebuilt. It is unclear how much of the present window is original or reconstruction. Elise Sandell writes in Southampton Cavalcade that a replacement window was taken from the south wall of 79 High Street.

Today the ruins are open to the public as part of Town Quay Park. They have been used for performances and exhibitions.

Description

The Watergate is the south gate of the medieval town, located at the south end of the High Street. The circular west tower survives, together with the remains of the rectangular Soper’s Tower, but the gatehouse over the archway and the east side were demolished in 1804.

History

The gate and the surviving west tower are likely to date from the second half of the 14th century, when the town walls around the west side of the town were being constructed. 

The Watergate may have been improved around 1400 when Henry V’s navy was run from Soper’s Tower for a short time. A three-storey tower with a toilet on each floor was built on the west side of the gate. By 1744, the tower had become ‘The Globe Inn’. During the 19th century, it was known as the ‘Castle Hotel’.

The Watergate was one of the casualties of the Southampton Blitz. After the war it was decided to conserve the exposed medieval building as a ruin. The post-medieval accretions were removed, and the stonework restored. The structure remains in the same ruined form today.

Description

To the north of God’s House Tower and Gate, the east walls are well-preserved and continue northwards as far as Briton Street. The Round Tower is in this section of wall together with the Friary Gate and the Friary Garderobe. It was built as a dovecote and the remains of the nesting boxes are still visible.

History

The round tower was built as a dovecote in the late 1200s. When the town wall was constructed on either side of it in the mid-1300s the back of the dovecote was demolished, and the stone used to build the external face higher to form a half-round tower.

In 1596, the Court Leet complained that all the small towers on the east walls had been turned into houses, and their inhabitants had cut holes through the walls for windows. Part of a brick fireplace or oven survives from its use as a house in the late 1700s.

Description

Conduit House is a small stone building on the corner of Commercial Road and Water Lane, previously known as Goswell Lane. The single storey building of uncoursed stonework has an unusual solid stone pitched roof of Bembridge and Purbeck limestone. On the east elevation there is one slit window which has been blocked in, and beneath this a low-level doorway with a timber boarded door.

Within the building there is one room, with a vaulted ceiling of square stone blocks. The north and south walls are tied together with an iron bar. There are the capped off remains of inlet and outlet pipes in the walls. In the centre of the room is a brick settling tank which has been partially dismantled.

To the north of the building is a modern garden area, which is enclosed by railings with an access gate. Archaeological investigations prior to the creation of the garden revealed several pipes and pipe trenches of varying ages.

History

Conduit House is a remnant of Southampton’s medieval water supply. In 1290 a spring called Colewell, in Shirley, was granted to the Franciscan Friars for them to enclose and construct a supply to the Friary in the southeast of the medieval town. The water was collected at the Conduit Head by Hill Lane and was piped under the Rollesbrook via a siphon. The water arrived at Conduit House where it was joined by further supplies from Lubbery Mead. The water fell into the tank where silt settled out and air was released before the water was piped southeast to the town.

In 1311, the friars granted the use of their surplus water to the people of the town. By 1420 the lead pipes had become decayed, so the friars agreed to hand over the water supply to the town, if the town would mend the supply and maintain the pipe to the Friary. As a result, Southampton became one of the first towns in the country to have its own piped water supply. Conduit House may have been built as part of the repair works, although it is not mentioned until 1515, which would fit with the present building.

Conduit House remained part of Southampton’s municipal water supply until at least 1836, when it was mentioned in an Act of Parliament. It is the only one of Southampton’s water houses still in existence. The site was relandscaped in 1992.