Early Modern Southampton Tour

Early Modern Southampton Tour

oh am I yeah I’m plugged in I think yeah all right how are you doing let me just reposition this a little I’ve been making sure that the gimbal is working properly because yesterday we had a couple of technical issues hopefully today should be fine um but yeah good morning everybody thanks so much for joining and I hope that you’re doing good I’ll quickly introduce myself and then I’ll start the tour so yeah if you can hear me can you please put a thumbs up or say something on the chat just so I know that it’s all working fine and if not well I I guess we we’ll figure it out because I’ll be talking and you guys will be like what the hell is happening um but yeah thank you so so much for joining um lovely to see some some familiar faces here so I hope you’re all having a very nice day and for those of you who don’t know me my name is Dr Lilian tpes Gonzalez but please just call me Lily um I am a historian and the uh main tour guide here at travolution tours now what we do here in travolution tours is very much link with the mission of heo we’re trying to make history and culture affordable and accessible for everybody so the fact that anyone can join me here from all over the world is fantastic and and that’s what we’re here for so for those of you who have done a tour with me previously I’ve been running some just general tours of the walk through Southampton just so you could all be introduced to the actual city um for those of you who don’t know where Southampton is or what Southampton is it is the largest city in the south of England literally right in the center and then today what we’re going to be doing is talking about the early modern history of the city so you can understand how we actually became the city that we are now so if you have any questions put them on the chat and without any more Ado I’m going to turn on the camera to start with our first building of today and the history of Southampton itself right so this building that you’ll see here there you go that is Cher house this is actually uh one of our most important uh monuments in the city um it’s well one of the best preserve monuments in in town overall and it is super important for us because it shows the prosperity of the city throughout time but this building has gone through some dark times as well so um this is what I’m going to talk to you guys about so even though it’s called Cher house and I’m sure you can see the tracery um here this building actually dates all the way back to the the 12th century the first building itself was around 1180 um oh hold on my gimbal is having a funny moment that be I don’t know why it’s not liking me okay I think it’s find itself stable now hopefully right there we go so yes the history of this building started in 1180 but the building was actually redone in 1510 we know that because the uh tracery is all done with wood and when we did the carbon dating of the wood as well as the dendro chronology um it it actually came back that the uh wood used for this building had been all taken in 1490 so that’s how far the wood on this building is the vast majority of the wood is original so yes Bonnie is actually cheer is not much cheer but as I’m sure you guys probably realize there are some Renovations um this is one of the few buildings where the city council throws more money in to its repairs so it they do get replaced every so often but the vast majority of the wood is still original um now I’m going to get close here to the side so you can see a little bit more of the wood in the flesh um but yes the reason why it’s mostly called chor house is because originally it was supposed to be a chor building now let me get here closer there you go that’s the original with itself it most likely did not come from um from ships and that actually goes back to the story of why this building is important here we have another example sorry the gimbal is shouting at me again it’s not really liking the balance of the microphone today give me one second guys I’m so sorry about [Music] this okay finally right sorry just sometimes when I connect this microphone it seems to unbalance the phone on one side and the Machine goes a bit crazy but it seems that it’s a bit happier now so the building was the first evidence that we have of recovery in the city after the Black Death right some Contex in here the city of Southampton had about two ,500 inhabitants in the Middle Ages and when the Black Death hit us the population went down to about 800 it was really really brutal so the fact that they even had money to make a whole new building with proper wood from The New Forest um it’s it’s remarkable because it shows that there was wealth back in the city that wealth came mostly through the 14 hundreds uh thanks to uh merchants and that’s actually the relationship between this building and the Southampton and the story of early modern Southampton the sea provided for the city we had had um trade here since the early medieval period but particularly since the time of William the conquer the trade of wool picks up in Southampton and this building during the 15th and 16th century became uh actually um the area where they stored a lot of wool Merchants produce and where some ship rights also did their work in fact the the building right next to it used to be one of the warehouses now this building is no longer um anything related with the shipping or wool industry it’s a museum currently so you can actually go inside and in fact they have a recreated Cher Garden which is absolutely gorgeous in the spring and in the summer but um it’s funny because despite this building being so important having been a huge Center for trade and for trade uh for mer to put their their stock and whatnot and for a little while we were very very close to Louis it because well we don’t exactly know what happened um despite being the most important building in the city in the 19th century it was completely in chambles it was about to fall off and it was up for demolition but um a an an anthropologist and philan philanthropist from the city William spranger decided that he was going to do everything in his power to save the building so he poured a lot of money he ped lots of public funds and as of 12 um sorry 1912 the building became a museum now it’s going through several Renovations since then and the exhibition that you can see inside today is not the same that what they originally had in in the early 20th century but that’s why we’ve mostly been able to preserve this building because someone thought it would make a great museum otherwise this would be completely lost so we’re very very lucky to have it in here still in one piece um so there you go the last time they did Renovations in here was actually in 2010 they were supposed to do some more um but the pandemic hit and therefore we kind of missed out on that opportunity so it’s been about 10 years since they’ve done some major repairs but it’s still in pretty good condition as you can see right now that you have this background to the early modern history of the city we’re going to move towards the seafront because like I said today the importance of Southampton is most thanks to the port to the harbor and it has been that way since the 15th century so we’re going to be walking down to a very important Monument that changed both the history of the United Kingdom and of the United States uh of course I am talking of the Mayflower memorial for those of you who don’t know I’m going to show you in just a moment so don’t worry I’ll tell you all about it but as we’re walking down you’re also going to see some of the oldest still preserved buildings here at um in the city now for those of you who may not have done my previous tours we are actually in what used to be the the heart of the city right currently it’s not so much that it’s is behind us where the department store is but yes a lot of these um paving stones have been here for a really long time that the streets here don’t get change much Renovations in the house next door this building that you see here is also one of the the oldest in the city it’s the Duke of Wellington it’s a pub um as you can see is not as old as Cher house but very nearly is late 1500s and over there that is um the street that connects us with the city walls so as you can see we’re not very far at all from the the uh original City defenses uh where we are going in fact is going to be uh well the area that would have originally connected to to the sea but this this all got bombed during the second world war so that’s reason why a lot of it is modern and we have very very few buildings but the few ones that we have that’s reason why they’re so well preserved because as we lost so much Heritage during the 20th century it’s very very important that those few pieces that are still you know all together uh in the spot are are actually kept now here on the left um we’re going to reach another building that was very important for the city of Southampton in relation to Cher house um which is called wool house it’s currently a pub and a brewery I’ll show you with a bit more detail when we go past it but um an interesting fact about wolf house and Cher house and the history of the port in general is that wool trade was so important in Southampton in the 16th century that we even have evidence for a guild of female wool Packers I bet you were not expecting to hear that but yes we have the actual records the guils fees and everything else from these 12 women it was just 12 of them and their job was very simple it wasn’t anything very fancy what they did was actually measure the length of the uh of the wool cargo and they just covered it with canvas so that um it would be protected when it went onto the ship or when it was being stored for a long period of time but you know for for these 12 women to actually make a living from this it must have meant that Wool Wool trade here in Southampton was vital um otherwise we wouldn’t be able to you know have those records now I’ll show you this section um in just a moment a bit better because we’re going to have to walk back this way but that is the uh fairy that goes to the aisle of white um but we’re going to see that a bit closer in just a moment we’re just going to take this one right to see the memorial for the May Flower now this is one of the busiest roads here in Southampton because it connects the city center with the uh with the docks um and for those of you who may have not been on previous tours Southampton is actually one of the busiest ports in the UK it is been uh like named the number one cargo terminal in Europe as of 2012 and the busiest port in the United Kingdom as of 2016 and 20 8 so that’s the reason why it there’s always so much traffic in here right we are now standing right in front of the Mayflower Memorial you see this big pillar here this would have been the exact spot guys from where the May Flower ship departed in 1620 so what you need to realize is that the water was here all of this like I don’t know if you can see here on the other side just past these buildings that’s where the water begins we’re going to see it closely in just a moment but that’s where the water is now all of this is reclaimed land to the Sea so this would have been one of the major docks in the city during the 17th century now the memorial was put here to commemorate well the founding of the colony itself there were supposed to be celebrations in um 2020 because that would have been you know four 400 years um well more more than 400 years actually 500 really since the uh ship departed but it all got well on put on hold because of um Co and they did some virtual celebrations and thanks to that if you guys are actually um if you guys are actually interested the um archaeological Society the mar Maritime archaeological Society did a 3D production of the whole um Memorial itself so you can see it online and play with it but I’m going to I’m going to come up there is a ramp I’m going to come up so you can see it from the front but I just wanted to show you some of the plaques in here um like this one in memory of the pilgrim Edward Doty in the Mayflower passenger 16 September 1620 that’s because um well I’ll tell you in just a moment but a lot of these passengers actually died shortly after they reached uh their destination so we do have not just Memorial as of the fact that they they departed from here but unfortunately a lot of them died in transit so I’ll go upstairs and I’ll show you the top of the memorial because there is a little ship in there as well that is worthwhile seeing um but it’s not well they they put this room here to make it accessible it’s not the easiest area to access if you don’t really know where you’re going we have this very annoying tendency in Southampton to not necessarily signposting very well when was the memorial output it was actually um in it was installed in 1920 so it would have been exactly 400 years after the ship departed from here it must have been pretty scary setting off yes for sure so as you can see it’s not anything major or fancy but it is a 50 fot tool so it is quite a seizable it’s quite a seizable column in there now I’m trying to find an angle where the light will actually allow you to see the ship at the top but although it’s a beautiful day the lighting is not really in our favor but there we go can you see there on the top the little ship that’s it’s supposed to signify the actual the actual Mayflower um and the rest just the the Portland Stone once again that is commonly used here in Southampton uh Portland Stone actually comes from Dorset which is not far from Southampton in fact it’s a county alongside Hampshire on the west coast um but it’s it’s a very beautiful stone that is very easy to work with and we have an abundance of it so um that’s that’s what we got and that’s actually uh the best the zoom does I don’t know why it’s not allowing me to go any further today I had problems with the zoom yesterday as well on on the gimbal so I think one of the wires there is not working very well unfortunately Pony um I don’t really know what’s happening there I’ve tried to fix it but it’s it’s not going any further than that I’m afraid I’m sorry about that um but yeah so I don’t know if you guys familiar with the history of the May Flower but I’ll I’ll tell you about it as we start walking down and um as we see it from a different angle just so you can appreciate it all over so during the 17th century in England there was severe religious unrest when I mean severe religious unrest is the polite way of putting it um there had been religion Wars for the vast majority of the 1500s and the 1600s all over in Europe in England it just kept them being a Power Balance between Catholics Protestants what have you not and then finally when the Protestants were in power it became a matter of what branch of protestantism was more important than the others so we ended up with a lot of separatists and independent churches now because Catholics came back into power during the uh the 1600s and then they came out fashion again it was there was a lot of religious persecution essentially so the pilgrim fathers the vast majority of them were actually Puritans uh after the reign of uh Cromwell of Oliver Cromwell puritanism wasn’t particularly fashionable in England right so you know it’s what happens when you pretend to be the Lord protector of the people and then you establish a tyrany people may have an issue with your religious practices it wasn’t it wasn’t very well scen a lot of people wanted to break away from that and they didn’t want to promote the idea of puritanism so a lot of the Puritans decided that um not for political reason so much but for their own well-being um and religious well-being they were going to leave England so there was a ship here called the Speedwell that was coming from Holland from Leen um to pick up pilgrims and to set off to the new world now a lot of those Pilgrims from Leiden were exps from the UK they had already left the UK to go to Holland but in Holland we also had the religion Wars with the Spanish Empire so it was just not a very good time for puritanism anywhere in general the opportunity comes up to go to the new world because here from Southampton there were very strong connections to the areas of Virginia so there had already being a lot of shipping industry going that way and some other migrants going there to try their Fortune so they decide you know what we’re going to put some ships together and cross the Atlantic so the speed well joins the M flower here in Southampton and um they were supposed to be carrying half and half of the passengers the issue is that the speed well had already encountered some problems in the channel it nearly sunk several times it reaches Southampton they do some repairs the ship’s still not floating well so by the time the speed well and the Mayflower depart um here in June July August I say July August because the calendar with the different religions actually changes here in the UK a couple of times so it’s not very easy for us to know whether it was July or August but it was roughly mid July beginning of August um and they find themselves that after departure they need to stop in Plymouth because the speed well nearly sank this is the reason why the colony in Massachusetts is called the Plymouth Colony not the Southampton Colony even though it departed from here so all of the passengers in the speed wheel get picked up by the um Mayflower now unfortunately that meant that a ship that was already pretty full became over capacity okay this ship the May Flower was supposed to be carrying about 60 people Al together and the provisions for 60 people and it ends up with 102 that is really dangerous when you’re going to get onto such a long Voyage Okay so over capacity the May Flower the parts once again this time from Plymouth across the Atlantic unfortunately it catches a huge storm in between September October time which delays the trip two more months but the time they reached uh the area of Massachusetts Bay in November 1620 it’s not looking good they had lots of losses from a from the point of view of of Provisions um obviously L they reach Massachusetts in the dead of winter which was not their original you know choice um and that actually makes it really hard for the colonists to to set their first communities you know it’s it’s completely Frozen Wasteland they don’t know anything they don’t know the crops they don’t know the soils they don’t have resources to keep 10 two people alive within six months of the ship getting to Massachusetts and founding the the Plymouth Colony um 50% of the people actually died and which is really sad because they went through all of this journey all of this trouble you know escaping religious persecution to actually just die of a starvation and and freezing because the colony was just not successful to begin with eventually uh after a whole year of trying really hard and receiving some help from the Native Americans which we don’t talk a lot about um The Colony manages to have its first harvest which is the reason why in the United States they celebrate Thanksgiving because that was the first time they were actually able to feed their people and that’s the reason why the departure of the Mayflower is so important here in Southampton you know it’s a historic moment we wish it would have been called the Southampton Colony but hey you can’t really you know guess what’s going to happen in the middle of the sea when you have two ships in precarious situations now for those of you who don’t know why the Plymouth Colony was so important um for both British and and American history and generally the history of the world is because this was the first colony that was created with a government without the need of a king it was kind of like a communal government it’s it’s a huge development for democracy and in fact the the Plymouth Colony becomes very much a a precursor of a lot of the Liberties and ideas of how to rule a country that would be developing in the United States after the um American War of Independence against uh the United Kingdom so that’s the history of the Mayflower and why it’s so important and and when we try to celebrate it here in in in England and in Southampton specifically they are hoping to move the festivities that they had planned for 2020 um probably uh this year or next year because Southampton is currently campaigning for city of culture 2025 but the campaign is not going so well so they may just do some form of virtual commemoration uh again to try and sort of push forward some of those stories which are really really important and really valuable but as you can see um it’s wonderful that we had something like like the Mayflower departing from here um it wouldn’t have been without all of that trade that I mentioned that that ship would have ever left from from Southampton um it it would have been impossible to think so it’s once again the prosperity that the sea provides for this city that allow this to happen now I just want to stop here very quickly this is the building that I was mentioning earlier guys called wool house now is the dancing Man Brewery it’s a very very nice building um it’s not a pub but it used to be the the wool storage house for the wool Merchants here in Southampton and it was also one of the tax collection offices so as you can imagine it was super super important because being so close to the Sea and I’ll show you just a moment the Watergate where all of those ships came through it just meant that you could get all that tax get all that money bring it into the city bring it into the ships and be sorted now we’re just going to go up here because I think the view is very nice and I know you guys like taking postcards as we go along so I’m just going to show you the view here next to the uh dancing Man Brewery if you ever come down to sampton which I hope you do sometime honestly stop here even if it’s just for a drink um because it’s very nice right so here you go we’ve come from that side that is cies is one of the oldest uh restaurants here in sampon it’s been in the pier it’s very famous because it’s a it’s it used to be an Indian Bracy now it’s a Tian Indian bracer but the food is absolutely delicious and this is where the ferry for the AL of white dep parts from and over there are the dogs and the the red fenel entrance actually if you look a bit this way you may see some ruins right there where my finger is pointing the light is probably not doing us any favors but there are some ruins there of an old house it used to be believed to be a castle or a private residence from a very wealthy person but it turns out that it was just another building of the city during Medieval Times um but yeah so that’s the view from here we’re going to go down now to the next stop that links with the the history of the port of Southampton which is actually how Southampton became important and how we got our docks which is what changes the city dramatically up until that moment in time even even with the trade that we were having uh through the 16th and 17th century the city of Southampton didn’t really recover much in terms of population um and it’s hard as well for us to judge population in cities like Southampton during the Middle Ages and the early modern period because being a port a lot of the citizens were um you know they were mobile they weren’t living here 247 okay uh if they were working in the ships which which was the the most common job that anyone could have here in sampon they were only here temporarily right they were in transit so when we look at um City Records population numbers whatnot it’s very hard to know whether you know the numbers are on a high season or low season whether those were formal residents whether they were just people in passing but either way you know whichever whichever way we we look at it even even thinking of the numbers from a very very um sort of positive Viewpoint uh even the highest numbers suggest that sampton was very much uh still in Decline now that building that you see over there used to be the City Port Authorities now it’s pretty much their elect we didn’t use it for anything uh but we’re going to go over there to show you the uh the dock area and over here we just have some nice buildings all of these buildings that you see again they are actually from the um well they are all mostly reconstructed after the war they pretend to be old they are actually not old at all um but I want you to show you quickly here on the left um what remains of one of the city walls right here you see here on the left this building so this is the water key the water gate and and the water key um this would have been where the actual wall ended this would have been again the sea so you see the wall and the Sea would have started right there um and unfortunately this is the most damaged piece of the wall so it’s not as nice as the one that we have in the city center but as you can see still very imposing and you know still a very important Monument unfortunately this part because it’s so far away from the from where most people sort of do their shopping doesn’t receive as much funding to be preserved so they mostly just clean it up there is literally nothing on the other side just empty wool but well this is like I said this is part of the problem that we have in this city with our culture and our heritage that is sort of well they can mix the city wall was actually built well this version of the city wall what you’re seeing here was actually built in the 1300s because of the um conflict between England and France the 100 Years War which was actually a lot more than a 100 years but the the city of Southampton got raided by the French troops who were trying to gain access to the um to the middle of Hampshire and and further into into the country so uh they realized that Southampton was the easiest way to get into Winchester Winchester used to be the ancient capital of the kingdom and it was still a very important city even in the later Middle Ages so they they caught on to the fact that Southampton was the easiest way to get in inside um so they raided they caused quite a lot of damage and the city decided Well we can’t have that so they built these huge walls in the mostly in the 1330s but it carried on until nearly the 1400s and in fact Cher house or the the area where CH hous is now um used to be part of the city wolves um or at least it was incorporated into the City Wolves right I apologize we’re probably going to hear some traffic now um as we cross over but yeah that’s that’s when the city walls were built [Music] and over here on the right I don’t know if you can see it but well that’s that’s the the red funnel that is indeed where people come to catch the the ferry to the aleis of white now you can go to the Ale of white both from Southampton and from Portsmouth Portsmouth has perhaps more regular um fairies it goes to two different locations where here from s and we just go to One location location in the alive White and the reason why I want to talk to you guys about the importance of this connection is well just one one peculiarity first of all the um the ferry that goes to Al of white is like one of the most expensive fairies in the world proportionally speaking because it’s not a very long journey it’s maybe 50 minutes an hour depending on how the weather is um in storm I can guarantee use a lot longer uh but it’s so so expensive um in in comparison to that that Journey anywhere else in the world um they refus to they could actually build a bridge to connect the two sides uh with the with the alive white but they refuse to because it’s it’s it’s quite lucrative for them so yeah if you lived in the a of w every ah it’s I mean it’s a very nice area it can be it’s very peaceful over there I think um and it has some some lovely lovely places but it like like with the south of England I don’t think it often gets the same uh the same reputation as the rest of the country unfortunately um I think now with the AL white festival which is like a big uh music and and food festival more people go over there but um there’s there’s a lot more that could be a that could be done in this in the alive white and and the South fingland overall yeah oh my God in like storms and and fog in in the south of England in the island it it can be devastating guys like even today which is not a particularly windy day we have wind here I’m sure you can hear it I’m doing everything I can to protect the microphone um so imagine in the middle of the storm it’s it’s seriously brutal right well the reason why we’re stopping here is because this this little Marina that you see here and you see those big sort of long structures over there that’s some of the cruise cruise ship Terminals and this is the reason why the city of Southampton is now um Cruise Capital number one of Europe and one of the most important ports in the world for cruise passengers and for ocean liners all of that happens with this story that I’ve been telling you guys about about the importance of trade here in Southampton so with those humble Origins as wool Traders and as wine Traders we start connecting the dots we start making friends in Iberia which means Portugal and Spain we also make some friends in ven and in Florence and trade starts developing slowly then obviously once the Plymouth Colony opens over there that allows for the international passage between one side of the Atlantic and the other but still the the development of the trading industry and and of Passenger industry here in Southampton and the south of England is very very slow until this happens and you’ll be thinking well Lily you’re just pointing at the water so what happened here well this is currently water but I’ll show you around so you so you get a better idea of where we are at and why why this matter all of these area up until the 19th century was mud land okay this was just literally nothing those buildings where we’ve been just now were the edge of the water and thankfully by some miracle the local authorities are granted in 1808 an act of Parliament that allows to build dry docks here now why does that matter because with the building of those docks eventually the city of Southampton was able to allow a lot more trade and ocean liners into our Port it wasn’t just a small port with a couple of keys it was an actual docking area so we can build more ships we can have more trade but it’s honestly that uh that Grant of parliament at the beginning of the 19th century that makes happened and the docks were built here originally this was the area so this madland is purchased by the Southampton uh City Dock company for a total of 5,000 pounds I know that probably doesn’t sound very impressive um for us now but I can guarantee you guys that was a lot of money back right at the beginning of the 19th century and thankfully the the inversion was really worthwhile because after that literally the population growth and the growth of this port goes up like exponentially at that time Southampton was reaching maybe about 10,000 uh permanent population right at the beginning of the 19th century by the time the dogs are completed we are almost already at 100,000 now for a little bit of context in this day and age Southampton has a total population of about 350,000 um if you only count Southampton it’s it’s a strange uh combination because here in the south of England we have a conation uh which means two big cities or two big Urban spaces colliding into each other which is Southampton and Portsmouth so technically speaking Southampton and Portsmouth have a conservation together and with that conservation we reach about 500,000 so like about half a million people but just Southampton on its own is 350,000 which is still a lot of people uh particularly for the south of England where the rest of of the area is um is rather rural well just so you can understand the the impact and how these dogs carry on going the dogs become so important but they are not very well managed they’re eventually bought by the um South um Southwestern rail company and now for those of you who are from the UK you probably know them because they they they own the trains here in the southwest um so and you’ll be thinking why would the southwestern um rail company want to buy the dogs in Southampton well you see what allowed to purchase the docks um is that over there over this area we’re actually going to walk there they had it’s now dormant but they had a train station that linked directly with the dock which meant all of the stock that was coming in could literally just be taken from the ships and into the trains and be distributed to um anywhere they wanted in the country which was super super handy because that meant that all of the transport cost cost all of the distribution cost stayed in house very profitable for them they created so many jobs it was honestly it was the best thing that happened to the city of Southampton um it wouldn’t have been possible otherwise so what type of trade you’re you think um we had here apart from wool and wine I can guarantee you by the 19th century we were trading other things other than wool and wine um we were starting to uh develop big big caros with uh places like Canada South Africa Australia and it used to be mostly supplies for the colonies we were you know shipping a lot of uh labor as well a lot of people were going over there but the the big changes really come at the beginning of the 19th century um sorry 20th century we have the the incident with the Titanic of which I will be talking more on Wednesday we managed to somehow recover from that somehow because it was really really damaging for the city and then in the by the early 20th century the city of Southampton is literally having 15 million tons of cargo being dropped on this soil every single year like I know this sounds like big numbers and you can probably not quantify it but just 15 million tons of cargo that’s that’s a lot of things now by the mid 20th century we diversify our cargo I’ll give you a a bit of an Insight of what sort of things are coming through I’m from Southampton U by the 1934 the the trade of exotic fruits have actually picked up a lot here in Hampshire and here in the south of England so we’re getting things like mangoes papayas pineapples that sort of thing coming into Southampton on a normal day in or a normal week sorry in this port in the 1930s they would uh unload from those cargo ships about 34 tons of palletes just with papayas pineapples and mangoes that’s just on fruit like it’s crazy when you think about it it’s just mesmerizing how much stuff gets moved through these Waters and but that’s like I said you can’t have Southampton without the water it’s simply impossible it is is a vital relationship this is what has allowed the city to carry on now unfortunately because the um the city was so prosperous um yes we moving now towards the right again because the city was so prosperous this became a huge Target during the second world war and I mean huge Target we had about 226 bombs dropped just in this docking area all right that’s a lot of bombs and that’s just here overall in the city of Southampton we had well the the the guesstimate and I mean guess because it’s it’s difficult to really estimate these things is that I told toal of 30,000 bombs were dropped in Southampton during the L Warfare raids um and that’s just I mean projectile bombs were not even considering here um uh incendiary missiles um so with those 226 bombs that dropped uh on the dock itself they destroyed at least 26 out buildings with out buildings I mean sheds warehouses storage houses that type of stuff and there was severe damage to the um to some of the terminals as well now the the Royal Navy has never been stationed here in Southampton that’s been a a job for Portsmouth that’s where the city of of Portsmouth has been um to say key but during the second world war just to try to improve uh the connections and and to have more men ready to cross the channel Southampton aided in that process uh we had actually a huge military camp in in the Southampton Common and a lot of ships were actually stationed here um a lot of our ships were not necessarily troops or transporting troops but again more in the supply chain moving things from the north of the country to the south of the country and over um across the the channel but uh you know that was a very very important strategic point and and the the dogs were a primary target so they got completely bombed they got but um eventually re redone in the 1960s with a lot of funding from uh the the government and the local government uh and that’s actually little by little what gave Southampton the opportunity to Rebrand itself as a cruise ship uh Capital because during the 60s obviously the the desire to travel the desire to take these new opportunities um and to see the world um was very important you know particularly after the war the people who who was able to afford it um decided to well take to take a boat just like today you guys are taking this trip with me and and go somewhere else and Southampton capitalized from that and if it wasn’t because of that uh we probably wouldn’t be the city that we are today um we we wouldn’t have adapted we wouldn’t have developed and we we wouldn’t have been able to move on from all the misery that we suffered but we did um by the 70s the the city was almost the size that it is in this day and age and by the 90s we were already in full Resurgence so the the most recent uh statistics suggest that already well into the 2010s Southampton was a number one ocean liner and um cruise ship liner uh in in Europe and in the UK so it was a pretty good comeback and um that’s pretty much the end of the tour but I wanted to come here just to show you this this um part of the city wall because I think it’s a good point to connect past and present this is called um godh housee Tower this would have been the exterior point or the further exterior point of the city walls during the Middle Ages these served as well as storage for the wool trade and the Wine Train in fact the um you can’t see it but this is currently a Heritage venue they hold a lot of like events in here and downstairs they have some old wine sellers um that sometimes have some wine tasting and historical talks because of of this and just imagine all of this all of this that you’re seeing right now would be the view of any guard in Southampton up until the 17th century when this became the prison of the city and it all would have been water and overnight as you know kind of like by Magic we started developing all of this all of that are the um the current docks or at least this is where it starts by the way Southampton has now like 56 docking areas so I’m not going to show you we could be here watching Dock dock areas until tomorrow um but over night that just appeared and created a such a such a profitable Enterprise for the city and and that is really the Journey of early medieval Southampton up until the 19th century just want to give you this last view of God house tower I think my gimbal is currently running out of battery um and that’s probably why it’s giving me a little bit of a hard time but that’s that’s it that’s the end of the tour so I’m just going to turn around to say to say hi well there we go thank you so much guys um for that I hope it makes sense I hope it helps you realize how you know the the journeys of cities and places that we go to AR aren’t necessarily straightforward I mean you know it took this city literally 500 years to get to the state that they were in the Middle Ages um by no fault of their own but it’s it’s sometimes what happens in history uh but but it can happen and I really really wanted to take this opportunity as well um to say thank you for being here thank you for your time and thank you for being so supportive um you know talking talking about certain topics in this day and AG like the war like what happened to Southampton during the second world war is is very hard because I keep on thinking of all of my colleagues in Kev I’ve been talking to a few of them and as you all know the situation is really really hard so um thank you for being there for for us thank you for being there for them and if you guys can can uh spend some time and you know go and support our our colleagues in the Ukraine um you would be absolutely amazing because they they really need your help today you know I really appreciate your help and and the fact that you’re here but you know I don’t have bombs dropping on me which is you know a matter of life and death so thank you so so much for your kindness for your words for your company um and we’ll be seeing you very soon you guys have a lovely weekend take care of yourselves and stay safe bye

We walk through the streets of the city of Southampton while exploring its early modern historical heritage. We have vies and gather knowledge about places such as the famous Tudor House, and the Mayflower memorial, reivindicating the heritage of the famous ship for our town instead of Plymouth.

*this tour was first broadcasted on the livestreaming platform known as Heygo.

To support the channel:

www.paypal.me/travelusiontours

www.buymeacoffee.com/travelusion