Mostly boats and a ghost

On 19 January 2022, I had been writing about boats and boatyards, so I had boats on my mind. I’d also been thinking about the maritime history of my city. In the days when I travelled the world, whenever I mentioned my home town, people would smile and talk about cruise ships and containers. In Malta, I was told, ‘Everything we have here comes on a ship from Southampton.’ Although I’ve never been a sailor or taken a cruise, I have lived with the sound of seagulls and foghorns all my life, and I can’t imagine not having the sea on my doorstep.

The sea brought Southampton prosperity by way of the wool and wine trade and, more recently, the giant cruise ships and containers at the docks. It also brought terrible disaster. The French came by sea to ransack Southampton back in 1338. The Titanic disaster in 1912 left a town of grieving widows. Of the 900-strong Titanic crew, over 720 called Southampton home. Only 124 made it back alive. In 1944, Southampton was the embarkation port for British and Canadian troops heading for the D-Day beaches. Two-thirds of the entire British assault force passed through the port. For many, it was the last friendly place they ever saw.

If I walk out of my door and turn right, I reach the water within five minutes. Technically, it isn’t the sea, it’s the River Itchen, but as everything downstream of Woodmill is salt water, it smells much the same. Unlike the sea, the River Itchen has an ever-changing array of shipwrecks to make things entertaining and fuel my imagination — not that it needs much help. These rotting hulks were what dragged me out of the house, well, that and the fact it wasn’t raining. As it happened, it was one of those perfect days — cold, but not icy, with enough cloud to make the sky interesting and no wind to ripple the reflections in the water.

There are always new boats to see. On this walk, I found one painted with dazzle camouflage near the old television studios. Even the old wrecks, abandoned long ago, provide a changing landscape as they slowly disintegrate and melt into the river mud. They also provoke questions. Where did they come from, and why were they discarded? People live on some of the boats. At night there are flickers of light, and during the day, odd constructions sprout here and there betray which are homes. One tangle of craft even appears to have acquired a pontoon with a garden shed. Do people choose to dwell on the water, or do they have nowhere else to go?

When I used to cross the river every morning on the way to work, I often saw a man rowing a tender to shore and climbing onto the bridge with a bicycle. Many years earlier, I looked out of my office window at the river and watched a hippy couple and their dog going back and forth to the boat they lived on. The dog usually chose to swim rather than use the little tender, and my boss often took the couple food parcels. Now there are fancy new apartments overlooking the river. When the apartment dwellers sit on their balconies, do they see their floating neighbours as an intriguing spectacle or an eyesore to complain about?

The river path looked a touch muddy, and I didn’t fancy a dip in the freezing water, so I walked the long way for a change. In fact, I even decided to give the boardwalk a miss. It was rush hour, and it’s usually full of people cycling to work then. Instead, I walked to the level crossing at Mount Pleasant. Typically, the gates were closed, so I had to climb the footbridge steps. Still, it gave me a panoramic view of the gasworks and another of Bevois Valley, so I had no complaints.

I had hoped to get some decent pictures of the Old Farmhouse as I passed. Unfortunately, I was out of luck. It has recently been turned into a car sales office, and the view of the fascinating old building was obscured by parked cars. It was a shame because the place is steeped in history. It dates back to at least 1560 when it really was a farm, the farmhouse of Northam Manor, to be precise. In 1611, the farmhouse was rebuilt, although some medieval stonework remains. Then, in 1843, it was turned into a pub. Until recently, it was the oldest pub in Southampton with a beer garden. Sadly, the last pint was pulled in 2019 when the pub was closed after an inspection by the Food Standards Agency. There were plans to renovate and reopen. Work even began, but the pandemic scuppered that idea.

Luckily I took some photos back in 2016 without a car in sight. The course of rough stone beneath the weathered red brick is probably part of the original medieval building. Years ago, when I worked on the industrial estate on the other side of the level crossing, I went for an after-work drink there. I remember oak beams and a real fire, but it was before the days of camera phones, so I have no pictures. Like all ancient buildings, this one is beset by rumours and stories. Apparently, Oliver Cromwell stayed at the farmhouse on more than one occasion. There are also stories of smugglers’ tunnels running under the fireplace to the river. Given that the pub was originally on the riverbank, this may be true.

Obviously, no old pub would be complete without a ghost. This one even had a skull unearthed in the cellar and displayed behind the bar to prove it was haunted. Whether the skull belonged to the unmarried, pregnant Irish girl who is said to haunt the pub or was the result of something more sinister remains to be seen. I don’t remember seeing a skull, and I have no idea what became of it, but the ghost liked to turn the jukebox on, play strange music and change the TV channel. I wonder if she’s haunting the new owners?

Along the road is another historic building, Mount Pleasant School. Back in August 2021, I’d passed on my way to parkrun and seen scaffolding around the clock tower and the bell house from the top standing in the playground. It was a peculiar view of something I’d only ever seen from below, and I was afraid it meant the lovely landmark was for the chop. Luckily, it turned out to be part of a refurbishment project funded by Southampton City Council and contracted to DGCL. Some photographs of the work can be found here, and a brief history of this lovely old board school, including the vital role it played in World War 2, can be found here. Today, I was pleased to see the scaffolding gone and the bell house replaced, although I’m not convinced the clock was telling the correct time unless I’d been walking much faster than I thought.

Once I’d passed the school, I scooted down the cut way and onto Empress Road, heading back towards the river. Once I’d crossed back over the railway line, I was in two minds about which way to go. If I walked along the boardwalk, I’d be able to see the remains of the hippy ship. The rush hour bicycles would be long gone, but the path from the boardwalk to the bridge would still be muddy, and the boats I would see from the bridge would be the same ones I’d passed earlier.

In the end, I decided to go home via Cobden bridge. Boats were the main focus of my walk. The ones I saw from Horseshoe Bridge and Cobden Bridge may not have been weathered wrecks to fire my imagination, but there were plenty of them.

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