Tag: Mount Pleasant School

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.

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Mount Pleasant

The next stop on my 11 April walk was Mount Pleasant, the area tucked away between Bevois Valley and Northam. It’s so tiny, more or less just one road and an industrial estate, that the name doesn’t even appear on the map. Nice as it sounds, the name Mount Pleasant usually has ironic origins and Mount Pleasant in Southampton is no exception. At risk of offending the locals, it is about as far as it’s possible to get from a mount — being at sea level right on the edge of the River Itchen — and it isn’t exactly pleasant either. In fact it’s right on the edge of Southampton’s most notorious red light district. Having said that, the little terraced houses are lovely and the area has a very interesting history. This was what I’d come to explore.

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