THE GREY TOWN OF GOOD-BYE

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 29, 4 February 1939, Page 3 (Supplement)

THE GREY TOWN OF GOOD-BYE

Southampton. Is yVt ore Than

TO most of us, the name Southampton conveys little more than a picture of huge docks and the arrival and departure of great liners. H. V. Morton calls it the grey town of good-bye, and the town of Sir Bevis, but it is in the former aspect that he gives a picture of the place in his inimitable "In Search of England," and we are left wondering about Sir Bevis. Many New Zeiilnmlers, doubtless, know Southampton, or at all events have passed through it. They know the' South Western Hotel, the* largest in the town, the docks, the Central Station, and perhaps'that is all. But there are other more interesting aspects of the famous seaport whose double tides allow the berthage of shipping at any hour and whose 200 acres of docks make it the first in the kingdom. Ancient Traditions Approaching Southampton by rail one crosscs the garden county of Hampshire —lovely rolling land dotted with clumps of well grown trees which give it the appearance of some vast park of a great nobleman, by whose courtesy the railway is allowed to cross these sweeping acres. In May and June thev are powdered with the gold of buttercups and thickly starred with daisies. After passing Winchester, the line follows the course of the Itchen a river which lower down forms the eastern boundary of the town; and now the great flat fields of Southampton Airport come into view, with their great hangars and landing grounds. If you fue wise, you choose one of the smaller .lotels there is a fascinating one in Canute Road, with low ceiling creaky stairs and excellent cookin"! After you have sampled one of the famous grills, you go out exploring, to find that Southampton is not merely the great arrival and departure platform of southern England, but a city with very ancient traditions, and among the few walled towns that can still point to her medieval fortifications. Not many "through passengers" know of the existence of these grand old walls with their watch towers and gates, nor that Jane

will V P ° n f ° l ' r 3 ,cars ill » house of If ic l' ey formed the garden boundary: Cannt ft Cl i'\' 01,1 the l )rim novelist to ,t '° ° h . e , U ? ne > ,mt yon are immediin tlle ki ""> wl '° s«<*cd C um*/, l't "1 tllc si S»l>°st in he- i ! ,"" 1 here 0,1 Southampton beach he rebuked his - courtiers by demonstrating his powerlessncss to con- ,,' 0 ' . , . y a \os. The traditional site of this historic event is Canute's House m Porter's Lane.

ni.ii l® ilre <Uvided b y the Parade and b\ the open spaces of garden from the abutments of the town. Following e larade, you notice an isolated piece

of masonry in the form of a rounded tower, originally the South Gate; continuing Mtstward along: the sea front you pass Town Pier and Royal Pier, and then the walls begin. They are grey and hoary; tnly of recent years lias Southampton realised that she has a priceless heritage in these walls. People have constantly been pulling and pecking at them since 1775, when three towers were demolished; the site of the Castle was sold for building plots in ISIS, and but for the timely intervention of "Punch," the beautiful Bar Gate would have been destroyed to make way for the trams! As it is,

you will find council houses and modern monstrosities of brick making deep in- 1 cisions in the Norman masonry. '•

Continuing north-west tortured by the thought that 'your ship sails for New Zealand in less than two hours — you come to a strange old building, still used as a kind of stove weyliouse. It is the Spanish prison, which housed the French and Spanish captives in longpast wars, and was from ancient times a wool store famous iu mercantile history. It is even now piled with bales and boxes, and has an enchanting grained ceiling of chestnut wood, black with age.

By--Mona Gordon

personal possession by dint of restoring, scraping and cleaning.. "They put French prisoners in here in the old days," he tells us, and indeed it is a gloomy enough dungeon, lightless and.chill. Retracing our steps, we arrive by Blue Anchor Postern in St. Michael's Square,, "with its ancient uSTorman church 1 built eoon after the Conquest. Opposite stands Tudor House—half timber and rosy brick, built by Henry Huttoft, chief officer of Customs in 1535. It is now a museum, and as we hurry up'and down ; its quaint oak staircases, without pause to examine the treasures each room .contains, the custodian tells us that we must see King John's Palace, the oldest house in England. Who could resist the oldest house in England, though already a ship's siren screams in imagination's ear? "It is just a step"; so we dash through the garden of Tudor. House, laid out in the formal Elizabethan manner, and there is the shell of a two-storeyed -building leaning for support against the fortifications which form its western wall. It is roofless, . eyeless, floorless—a mere shell in stone, but there are the remains s of the fireplace and chimney—-the oldest

In a» little while the walls begin in earnest —hitherto you have passed only broken bits of isolated gateways. They are hoary grey with moss and the action of weather, and they bear the unmistakable imprint of nobility which marks all Norman handiwork. Richard II repaired them in the latter part of the 14th century, but the core of the stonework is much older than that. Here and there, a rounded tower breaks the monotony of the unwavering line, or a gateway breaks through giving access on one side to the higher part of the town, on the other to the sea. Near Blue Anchor Postern you find an inscription which tells that- through this gateway Henry V's great army, 30,000 strong, marched on its way to embark for Agincourt. Those were the days of glory and of English victories on foreign soil; and you stand on the pavement beneath the archway that shadowed the heads of the troops as they passed out to the waiting ships in 1415. The Arcades Walking along the shore, you arrive at the most interesting part of the walls. These are the arcades, a set of macliicolatcd arches built into masonry to secure added strength.. They arc protected ill part by small iron grilles on the footpath, as they are considered to be unique. Hereabouts a fleet of French galleys landed in 13.'SS, scattering lire and terror through the town; so the cost of the arcaded supports was met by the lightermen, who were obliged to carry a load of stones and drop them at the place, or pay a fourponiiy fine ou lauding goods minus the necessary contribution. A little further 011 we are lucky to find one of the doors ajar that "ive access to the interior of the walls. Inside, a gang of workmen are busy with repairs, and the foreman proudly displays "his walls," which become a

, chimney—it dates from the 12th cen--1 tury. Over the top of the wall, one ' looks seaward across land reclaimed; - somewhere here landed .Philip of Spain to marrjrMary Tudor \ Previous visits formerly made the ; central part of the town more familiar. ! It has a general air of cosmopolitanism, a stir of life from foreign contacts » unusual in cities of its size—the population is about 170,000. The main artery, called High Street, is cut in half by the glorious Bar Gate, best preserved relic of the ancient gateways. It is an embattled structure with three archways giving through passage to traffic and pedestrians; since diverted, tramcars and vehicles now make a detour to avoid it, and the splendid gateway stands alone. 011 the northern front are two great figures, the giant Ascupart and his vanquisher, Sir Bevis of Southampton. Bevis, like other knights of romance provided the medieval minstrel with his exploits; he was a son of "the good Erie Sir Gy of Hampton," and was a hero little less celebrated than Arthur's Kniglits of the Round Table.

At Bar Gate, all the town dues once collected, and the four 'windows over the archways indicate the Guildhall where the Court of Justice lias sat since Elizabeth's days.- Somewhere* hereabouts, Henry r V had the traitors beheaded on the discovery of a plot against him before setting out for,Agincourt. They were buried in the still extant God's House in Winkle Street, and modern shop fronts now look down 011 the place of execution.

Southampton, took a century to recover from the plague of IGGS; a few years after the plague, Isaac Watts was born in a house still standing near St. Michael's Square. You may think of him in church for he wrote the greut hymn "O God Our Help in Ages Past." Sir John Everett Millais is another famous son of Southampton. In IS4O the railway connected the port with London since which the place has forged ahead to become not only the greatest seaport in Britain, but a famous air terminal, the highway of nations.

But withal, Southampton is quaint and old, with her feet in the Middle Ages, her long limbs stretching seawards, and lier ears intent to catch the drone of her returning 'planes.