Publication designed by www.themarketing-collective.com
www.tudorrevels.co.uk
The Tudor Revels was a two year project supported by a wide range of community, heritage and amenity organisations and funded by a grant from the Heritage Lottery. Its aim was to raise the profile of Southampton’s historic records and the way they can be used to interpret and bring to life the heritage of the town. The Revels have included a wide variety of public events including Michaelmas Fairs and dramatic performances, workshops in music, costume and dance, a whole host of talks and visits as well as offering training to heritage volunteers and budding researchers. It has also left a legacy via The People Project database, this walk leaflet and a book on Tudor Southampton which we hope will inspire future generations to become involved in local history and support the preservation of Southampton’s heritage.
Gods House Tower, Winkle Street
Southampton Museums
Friends & Supporters If you look North you will see the Bargate, which was the north gate and entrance to the Tudor town as well as the guildhall where the town court was presided over by the mayor. ross the High Street, turn left onto West St, then cross Castle C Way. On the other side you will see Simnel Street, go down the street till you come to a garden on your right
Tudor House Museum
Medieval Merchants House Museum, 58 French Street
City of Southampton Society Diaper Heritage Association Friends of St James Park Friends of Southampton Museums, Archives & Galleries Friends of Southampton Old Cemetary Friends of Town Quay Park Gosport Living History Group Hamble Valley Heritage Guides Old Town Residents Association Saint Michaels Church Sarah Siddons Fan Club Theatre Company Southampton City Archives Southampton City Museums & Archaeology Unit Southampton City Museums Archaeological Society Southampton Records Series Southampton Tourist Guides Association University of Southampton Willis Fleming Historical Trust In the sixteenth century the Dolphin was the largest inn in the town where many notable visitors would have stayed, or dined, as well as visiting merchants and traders. It had rooms with names such as the Dragon Room and the Kendalmens Room named for the visiting Kendal cloth merchants. Rooms were furnished with Turkish carpets, which would have been hung on the walls, and Venetian glass. The Kendalmens chamber had two standing beds, two truckle beds, three featherbeds and bolsters, two coverlets, a square table, bench, and painted cloth wall hangings. The courtyard would have had external galleries, providing a natural performing space for travelling theatre companies. All the famous theatre companies visited Southampton including Leicester’s Men, Lord Strange’s company and the Lord Chamberlain’s men.
Open out to start the walk
Proposed Heritage Centre Gods House gate was one of the main gateways of the walled town and took its name from the adjacent property of God’s House or the Maison Dieu. Leading out on to the marsh, pasture lands, orchards and the bowling green, the gate included the substantial L-shaped tower used to store the town guns. Gods House was also the site of one of the earliest documented town mills in the country. During the Tudor period the mill was owned by the prominent Capelyn family. By 1600 Denis Rowse had taken over the rebuilt mill. His servant John Martin was presented at Court Leet for putting into a sack of Mr Toldervay’s wheat ‘a pottle or more of the Sande of the sea, and grounded it all together with the wheat to the great hurt and damage of the people that showld eat the same and great unwholesomnes of the bread for mans boddie.’ A note in the margin says that the culprit was punished in the pillory.
The Dolphin
This prominent corner tenement was one of the most important residences in Tudor Southampton and remained in continuous occupation until it eventually became a museum in 1912. All its former residents left their mark on the building but at its heart is the wood panelled banqueting hall. When John Dawtrey extended the property in the late fifteenth century he incorporated two former cottages at the rear of the main building. The house leads out into an impressive Tudor garden restored and landscaped by the garden historian Dr Sylvia Landsberg. It contains more than 100 flowers and herbs common in Tudor times, used for both culinary and medicinal purposes.
This museum lovingly recreates life in a medieval merchants house at a time that the king of England remarked ‘Southampton abounds in merchants, sailors, mariners who flock from distant ports to that town with an immense quantity of cargoes, galleys, and ships plying with merchandise to the port there’ Henry VI 1447. The house would still be familiar in its layout and furniture to the early Tudor inhabitants of the town. It was stone built but with timber in the interior and the front above ground level. At the front was a shop with shutters, which would be open to indicate the owner was licensed to trade. Below was a stone barrel shaped vault for storing goods and above the front and back of the central hall there are three chambers. It would not have been classed as the grandest of houses but still a substantial residence and at one point was owned by Thomas Fashin who served as town steward during Elizabeth I’s reign.
Quarter Jacks, Bevis & Ascupart On the outside of Holy Rood church the church clock houses quarter jacks that date from the sixteenth century. These colourful figures strike the quarter hours and their costumes and faces suggest that they might be images of Sir Bevis of Hampton and his squire, the giant Ascupart. The legend of Sir Bevis dates back to the early middle ages and was a well read and well studied text up until the eighteenth century. In the late fifteenth century when towns in England were looking to assert their independence from the crown, they linked their history to a noble founder. This might be a saint or a Saxon king or a more legendary character. Southampton of course had an ideal candidate who already bore the towns name. In the Tudor period great wooden paintings of Bevis and Ascupart hung on the outside of the Bargate to overawe or welcome visitors arriving in the town.
About the Tudor Revels
Thanks also to: Aspace Bitterne Local History Society Cantores Michaelis Eastleigh Borough Council The Historical Association The People Project Researchers Group Southampton City Council The University of the Third Age Special Thanks to the Tudor Revels Working Group & The Heritage Lottery Fund
Continuing the walk...
The People Project
Roger Machados House On the north side of Simnel Street is a garden area where archaeologists uncovered the cellars of a large house. The rubbish pits contained imported pottery and Italian glass. Documents showed that Roger Machado, a herald to Edward IV, Richard III and Henry VII, lived here. He was from Portugal and his knowledge of English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Latin gave him a career as a diplomat and ambassador to the early Tudor kings. Turn left into Bugle Street and make your way back to St Michaels Square
St Michaels Church St Michaels church has an ancient history being the oldest building within the town walls, dating from 1070. During the Tudor period it found itself in the middle of the great cultural revolution that was the Reformation. It has endured many changes not only religious, and has altered its size and shape to accommodate both growing and reducing congregations. Its most prominent Tudor memorial is the stone carved tomb of Sir Richard Lyster, Lord Chief Justice of England, and former resident of Tudor House. Lyster trained as a lawyer during the reign of Henry VII, served Henry VIII and Edward VI as the country’s chief justice, died during the reign of Mary and saw his monument finally in place at the start of Elizabeth’s reign. He had taken part in the trials of Bishop Fisher and Sir Thomas More, attended the coronation of Anne Boleyn and managed to survive the dangers of the Tudor court. He married the widow of Sir John Dawtrey and by that means gained control of Tudor House where he died in 1554.
of the wal k End
To find out more about Tudor Southampton and all the people who lived in the town visit www.tudorrevels.co.uk you will find a map of the town – hover over the red flags for some historical snippets – a growing number of articles about town life and if you click on the tab called ‘records’ you will find a database of all known people who lived in the town. A group of around 20 volunteer researchers and editors have been working their way through the towns documents held in the Southampton archives and extracting information to create as in depth a picture as possible about the Tudor townsfolk. As a port the town has immigrants from across England but also there are French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, German, Saracens, Irish, Portuguese all living together within the walls. We can place many of them within specific parishes and trades. By constructing a time line of entries we can estimate lifespans and surviving wills have helped connect members of the same families.
Historical Survival
a walking tour around tudor Southampton
St Michael’s Church is the only church used in the Tudor period that has survived intact. All Saints and Holy Rood were bombed during the second world war and St Lawrence and St. Johns were demolished. The mother church of St. Mary was also demolished during the sixteenth century although subsequently rebuilt, only to also be bombed and rebuilt again after the second world war. Volunteers from the Friends of St. Michael enable the church to be open to visitors outside of the usual services and the church has much of interest inside including a 12th century medieval font, medieval brass eagle lecterns and stained glass windows including one depicting all five of the medieval churches within the walls.
The database is already being used by historians, genealogists, family historians and is contributing to the wider study of Southampton’s history.
e Peopl Histo Names ry s d Recor Family
This circular tour will take approximately 1 ½ hours start from St Michaels Square, Bugle Street.
This museum lovingly recreates life in a medieval merchants house at a time that the king of England remarked ‘Southampton abounds in merchants, sailors, mariners who flock from distant ports to that town with an immense quantity of cargoes, galleys, and ships plying with merchandise to the port there’ Henry VI 1447. The house would still be familiar in its layout and furniture to the early Tudor inhabitants of the town. It was stone built but with timber in the interior and the front above ground level. At the front was a shop with shutters, which would be open to indicate the owner was licensed to trade. Below was a stone barrel shaped vault for storing goods and above the front and back of the central hall there are three chambers. It would not have been classed as the grandest of houses but still a substantial residence and at one point was owned by Thomas Fashin who served as town steward during Elizabeth I’s reign.
Medieval Merchants House Museum, 58 French Street
Proposed Heritage Centre Gods House gate was one of the main gateways of the walled town and took its name from the adjacent property of God’s House or the Maison Dieu. Leading out on to the marsh, pasture lands, orchards and the bowling green, the gate included the substantial L-shaped tower used to store the town guns. Gods House was also the site of one of the earliest documented town mills in the country. During the Tudor period the mill was owned by the prominent Capelyn family. By 1600 Denis Rowse had taken over the rebuilt mill. His servant John Martin was presented at Court Leet for putting into a sack of Mr Toldervay’s wheat ‘a pottle or more of the Sande of the sea, and grounded it all together with the wheat to the great hurt and damage of the people that showld eat the same and great unwholesomnes of the bread for mans boddie.’ A note in the margin says that the culprit was punished in the pillory.
Gods House Tower, Winkle Street
www.tudorrevels.co.uk Thanks also to: Aspace Bitterne Local History Society Cantores Michaelis Eastleigh Borough Council The Historical Association The People Project Researchers Group Southampton City Council The University of the Third Age Special Thanks to the Tudor Revels Working Group & The Heritage Lottery Fund
Continuing the walk...
Quarter Jacks, Bevis & Ascupart On the outside of Holy Rood church the church clock houses quarter jacks that date from the sixteenth century. These colourful figures strike the quarter hours and their costumes and faces suggest that they might be images of Sir Bevis of Hampton and his squire, the giant Ascupart. The legend of Sir Bevis dates back to the early middle ages and was a well read and well studied text up until the eighteenth century. In the late fifteenth century when towns in England were looking to assert their independence from the crown, they linked their history to a noble founder. This might be a saint or a Saxon king or a more legendary character. Southampton of course had an ideal candidate who already bore the towns name. In the Tudor period great wooden paintings of Bevis and Ascupart hung on the outside of the Bargate to overawe or welcome visitors arriving in the town.
The Dolphin In the sixteenth century the Dolphin was the largest inn in the town where many notable visitors would have stayed, or dined, as well as visiting merchants and traders. It had rooms with names such as the Dragon Room and the Kendalmens Room named for the visiting Kendal cloth merchants. Rooms were furnished with Turkish carpets, which would have been hung on the walls, and Venetian glass. The Kendalmens chamber had two standing beds, two truckle beds, three featherbeds and bolsters, two coverlets, a square table, bench, and painted cloth wall hangings. The courtyard would have had external galleries, providing a natural performing space for travelling theatre companies. All the famous theatre companies visited Southampton including Leicester’s Men, Lord Strange’s company and the Lord Chamberlain’s men. If you look North you will see the Bargate, which was the north gate and entrance to the Tudor town as well as the guildhall where the town court was presided over by the mayor.
This prominent corner tenement was one of the most important residences in Tudor Southampton and remained in continuous occupation until it eventually became a museum in 1912. All its former residents left their mark on the building but at its heart is the wood panelled banqueting hall. When John Dawtrey extended the property in the late fifteenth century he incorporated two former cottages at the rear of the main building. The house leads out into an impressive Tudor garden restored and landscaped by the garden historian Dr Sylvia Landsberg. It contains more than 100 flowers and herbs common in Tudor times, used for both culinary and medicinal purposes.
Tudor House Museum
City of Southampton Society Diaper Heritage Association Friends of St James Park Friends of Southampton Museums, Archives & Galleries Friends of Southampton Old Cemetary Friends of Town Quay Park Gosport Living History Group Hamble Valley Heritage Guides Old Town Residents Association Saint Michaels Church Sarah Siddons Fan Club Theatre Company Southampton City Archives Southampton City Museums & Archaeology Unit Southampton City Museums Archaeological Society Southampton Records Series Southampton Tourist Guides Association University of Southampton Willis Fleming Historical Trust Cross the High Street, turn left onto West St, then cross Castle Way. On the other side you will see Simnel Street, go down the street till you come to a garden on your right
Publication designed by www.themarketing-collective.com
The Tudor Revels was a two year project supported by a wide range of community, heritage and amenity organisations and funded by a grant from the Heritage Lottery. Its aim was to raise the profile of Southampton’s historic records and the way they can be used to interpret and bring to life the heritage of the town. The Revels have included a wide variety of public events including Michaelmas Fairs and dramatic performances, workshops in music, costume and dance, a whole host of talks and visits as well as offering training to heritage volunteers and budding researchers. It has also left a legacy via The People Project database, this walk leaflet and a book on Tudor Southampton which we hope will inspire future generations to become involved in local history and support the preservation of Southampton’s heritage.
About the Tudor Revels
Open out to start the walk
Southampton Museums
Friends & Supporters
The People Project
Roger Machados House On the north side of Simnel Street is a garden area where archaeologists uncovered the cellars of a large house. The rubbish pits contained imported pottery and Italian glass. Documents showed that Roger Machado, a herald to Edward IV, Richard III and Henry VII, lived here. He was from Portugal and his knowledge of English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Latin gave him a career as a diplomat and ambassador to the early Tudor kings. Turn left into Bugle Street and make your way back to St Michaels Square
St Michaels Church St Michaels church has an ancient history being the oldest building within the town walls, dating from 1070. During the Tudor period it found itself in the middle of the great cultural revolution that was the Reformation. It has endured many changes not only religious, and has altered its size and shape to accommodate both growing and reducing congregations. Its most prominent Tudor memorial is the stone carved tomb of Sir Richard Lyster, Lord Chief Justice of England, and former resident of Tudor House. Lyster trained as a lawyer during the reign of Henry VII, served Henry VIII and Edward VI as the country’s chief justice, died during the reign of Mary and saw his monument finally in place at the start of Elizabeth’s reign. He had taken part in the trials of Bishop Fisher and Sir Thomas More, attended the coronation of Anne Boleyn and managed to survive the dangers of the Tudor court. He married the widow of Sir John Dawtrey and by that means gained control of Tudor House where he died in 1554.
of the wal k End
To find out more about Tudor Southampton and all the people who lived in the town visit www.tudorrevels.co.uk you will find a map of the town – hover over the red flags for some historical snippets – a growing number of articles about town life and if you click on the tab called ‘records’ you will find a database of all known people who lived in the town. A group of around 20 volunteer researchers and editors have been working their way through the towns documents held in the Southampton archives and extracting information to create as in depth a picture as possible about the Tudor townsfolk. As a port the town has immigrants from across England but also there are French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, German, Saracens, Irish, Portuguese all living together within the walls. We can place many of them within specific parishes and trades. By constructing a time line of entries we can estimate lifespans and surviving wills have helped connect members of the same families.
Historical Survival
a walking tour around tudor Southampton
St Michael’s Church is the only church used in the Tudor period that has survived intact. All Saints and Holy Rood were bombed during the second world war and St Lawrence and St. Johns were demolished. The mother church of St. Mary was also demolished during the sixteenth century although subsequently rebuilt, only to also be bombed and rebuilt again after the second world war. Volunteers from the Friends of St. Michael enable the church to be open to visitors outside of the usual services and the church has much of interest inside including a 12th century medieval font, medieval brass eagle lecterns and stained glass windows including one depicting all five of the medieval churches within the walls.
The database is already being used by historians, genealogists, family historians and is contributing to the wider study of Southampton’s history.
Names
This circular tour will take approximately 1 ½ hours start from St Michaels Square, Bugle Street.
e Peopl Histo ry ds Family
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beginning of th e e Th Tudor walk
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www.twitter.com/TudorRevels
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est Gate Hall originally The Fish Market W & Cloth Hall The town owned many public buildings and warehouses dedicated to particular trades. West Gate Hall used to stand in St Michael’s Square, in front of the church, it stood on stilts and its lower chamber was open to the elements. It was here that the town fish market was located. Above was the town cloth hall and merchants from all over England would come here to buy and sell cloth. Merchants from Kendal were so numerous that they even had a room named after them at the Dolphin Inn. The fish market building was moved in 1634 after complaints from the parishioners using St Michael’s church about the stench of fish. Head between the houses and the town wall along Cuckoo Lane
Cuckoo Lane In the Tudor period this area was used to build racks for stretching cloth after washing and dyeing. Dyeing was a very unpleasant activity and there were many complaints about it happening within the precincts of the town.
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The gate-tower and wall were built after the French sacked the town in 1338. Henry VIII paid for the defences to be upgraded and the gun ports in the front of the tower probably date from this time. Dwellers in west gate were told off in 1602 for “throwing downe ther water into the streets whereby they do decay the paving. And in tyme of winter in open weather do Cawsse the streets to be filthy and durty And in frost to be so glassy with Ice that no man is able to travel that way without danger”.
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The West Gate
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On the quay was a large crane which used a treadmill to lift cargo out of the ships. The town had a paid official who looked after the crane and received a town livery. Such was the cranes’ importance that they appear on sixteenth century town maps. On the south side of the quay was the town’s main toilet. The town toilets all had descriptive names, such as the jakes, the little house of easement and the house of sighs. There were constant complaints about the stench and piling up of dung. Nearby was a salt-works where the polluted seawater was boiled down to make salt. The locals complained about the smoke from that as well.
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The Galley Quay
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www.tudorrevels.co.uk
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Blue Anchor Lane
Head south towards the West Gate
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In the Tudor period it was officially known as My Lord’s Lane after Lord Chief Justice Richard Lyster, who lived in Tudor House during the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI. The alternative name Piss Pot Alley was due to his servants emptying the chamber pots out of the overhanging upper storeys.
Southampton owed much of its wealth in the medieval and early Tudor period to the visits of Italian merchants. Ships from Genoa, Lucca, Ragusa, Florence and the galleys of Venice brought luxury goods into the town. They had their own quay just outside the Postern Gate where they would unload goods such as carpets, ivory, leopard skins and silks. The fleets came less often during the reign of Henry VIII and he visited the town to encourage them to maintain their trade with England. He spoilt things rather by asking if he could ‘borrow’ the guns from the fleet. One Italian admiral and his ship found himself stuck in Southampton for 18 months while the Italian ambassador tried to get the guns back. At the south end of the quay was a shipyard, most of the ships owned by Southampton merchants were of small tonnage but they still managed to travel to Newfoundland catching fish and bring it back to the fish market in St Michael’s square.
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Gods House Gate/old bowling green The Wool House Beaulieu Abbey used this building as their wool warehouse, and it is the only surviving example of the many warehouses that stood in this area in the Tudor period. Italian merchants bought up the English wool and it was brought here to be packed into wool-sacks ready for export. During the reign of Henry VII an official wool-packers guild was established here to undertake the packing of the pokes of wool. It was unusual in that all its members and its wardens were women, the first being a woman called Elizabeth Burgess. During the reign of Queen Elizabeth several of the town buildings were rented out to privateers who used them to store their prize goods which they looted from Spanish, Portuguese and French vessels under the reprisal system. The mayor of Southampton as Admiral of the Port also held a court which heard cases of disputed prize ships. The Privateering Earl of Cumberland leased the town warehouses for his successful voyages in the 1590s, his main captured cargoes being ginger and sugar. Amongst other famous privateers who used the port was Sir Walter Raleigh whose prize cargoes included elephant tusks. Cross French Street and as you cross if you look left you will see the stone remains of the Weigh House where heavy goods were weighed for customs duties. The honorary post of Weigher of Wools was often given to a Royal favourite. In Henry VIII’s reign it was held by Sir Henry Norris who was later executed accused of being one of Queen Anne Boleyn’s alleged lovers. Head east down Porters Lane to the Water Gate.
Water Gate
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alk west down Blue Anchor lane to the original quayside W on Western Esplanade.
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Always a prominent tenement building, in 1491 John Dawtry, after marrying Jane William the wealthy widow who owned Tudor House, extensively remodelled the property. He gained permission from the town to increase the frontage onto Bugle Street and also into Blue Anchor Lane. This extension can still be seen if you stand at the top of the lane. Dawtrey was later knighted by Henry VIII for services to the crown for the work he did on renovating Southampton’s defences and for overseeing the building of Henry’s flagship, the Mary Rose. Several of the internal original timbers in the building are of the same date as the Mary Rose. The main frontage of the building was remodelled when it was turned into a museum in 1912 but still manages to preserve the essence of the original house.
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Bull Hall The brick gate piers mark the back entrance to Bull Hall. Once a large medieval house, the property had originally been in the possession of a former mayor and merchant of the town, Henry Huttoft. His daughter Dorothy married the Florentine merchant and some time spy Antonio Guidotti. Unfortunately he involved his father-in-law in some risky business ventures and Huffoft was financially ruined in 1540 and this probably was when the property passed to the Wriothesley Family who were to become Earls of Southampton. The first Earl, Thomas Wriothesely [1505-50] worked for Thomas Cromwell and Cardinal Wolsey and obtained lands in Hampshire when the monasteries were dissolved, included Titchfield Abbey and Beaulieu Abbey. The second Earl [1545-81] was a staunch Catholic and involved in plots against Queen Elizabeth working in league with the Spanish. The third Earl [1573-1624] was a theatre-lover and Shakespeare’s patron. Condemned by Elizabeth for supporting the Earl of Essex’s rebellion his property of Bull Hall was seized by the Queen and he languished in the Tower but escaped execution being released when James I ascended the throne. Follow the lane down the slope, and at the end you will see the remains of a tower
St Barbara’s Tower There was no standing army in England at this time so towns like Southampton were responsible for their own defence. The town walls and towers were sub-divided and attributed to various wealthy towns people and craft guilds. This tower was looked after by the brewers and bakers, it was a two storey gun tower. St Barbara was a very popular saint before the Reformation and was said to have lived in a tower. As well as having an association as a patron of gunners she was also a help to those suffering from fevers and who were near to death. Head down the steps and cross Bugle Street to the Wool House
which was not free to pupils, was set up in Winkle St, adjacent to God’s House gate, following endowments from William Capon and John Capelyn. The boys were taught in a loft above the town stables, town boys paid 6d a quarter and others 16d and the schoolmaster received a salary of £10 which the town paid. One of the most prominent masters was Adrian a Saravia a Protestant refugee who had a house next to St Juliens. A number of Tudor scholars and diplomats were taught at the school including Sir Thomas Lake who became secretary to Sir Francis Walsingham, and was known by the name ‘Swiftsure’ and his brother Arthur Lake, Bishop of Wells. The school remained on this site for 142 years.
Only the west half of the gate survives. In the Tudor period this was the main gate by which visitors by sea came to Southampton. The gate had three sundials and a pair of carved lions stood guard on either side. During the visit of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V in 1521-2 the watergate was repointed and whitewashed, the painters had to hang from the battlements in cradles. It was also heavily fortified, when there were rumours of French attack an earthwork was built on the quay outside and bronze cannon were dug into the quay ready to fire at the attacking French ships. One such attack happened in 1542 when one of the town gunners, Harmon Smith, was killed when his gun exploded. Head across to Winkle Street
St Juliens known as The French Church St Julians chapel escaped the worst ravages of the Reformation as it played down its religious significance and focused instead on the support of the alms houses on the site. Almshouses were often built near to town gates so that travellers and pilgrims would be encouraged to give alms and the foundations were also a place where travellers could rest. The chapel was dedicated to St Julien the Hospitaler, patron saint of travellers who, it is said, built an inn and a hospital near a wide river to offer succour to both travellers and the poor. The whole site was and is still held by Queens College Oxford, but this did not prevent Elizabeth 1 offering the use of the Chapel to French and Walloon Protestant refugees who were fleeing from persecution and religious wars in the Low Countries and France during the second half of the sixteenth century. These merchant strangers did much to boost the flagging economy of Southampton during Elizabeth’s reign particularly by setting up weaving and cloth making in the town.
Edward VI school Was originally sited on the right of Winkle Street adjacent to Gods House gate. One of the consequences of the Reformation was that the usual place for boys to get an education, the monasteries, was no longer available. Instead there was the rise of the Grammar School, independent foundations usually endowed by wealthy local merchants and burgesses. These schools gained their licences from the crown, particularly Edward VI. Southampton’s Free School,
Outside of God’s House gate was the Saltmarsh, grazing grounds for horses and cattle, oyster beds and what is believed to the oldest bowling green in the world. Today bowls is considered a sedate past-time but in the sixteenth century it was thought to turn men into gamblers, distract apprentices from their work, and considered a great vice. However despite many tracts written against the playing of games and many fines imposed upon the players it continued to be very popular. Games did get heated however and in the same year Drake played bowls as he waited the arrival of the Spanish Armada, two former mayors of Southampton were fined for fisticuffs at the old bowling green. Follow the line of the wall to the Friary Gate
Friary Gate House The Franciscan Friary was transformed by Henry VII into a house of Observant Friars in 1499 but within a generation it was dissolved by Henry VIII; Friar Peacock did not help matters by preaching a sermon against Henry VIII in Winchester Cathedral, and he was dragged off to prison in 1534. The Friary was then given to the Augustine Order until it was finally suppressed in 1538 when John Peyll and five companions surrendered the premises. It included a quire, church, vestry, chapter house and cloister, frater, infirmary, tailor’s house, parlour, kitchen and washhouse and a library. The friary was briefly reinstated under Mary Tudor in 1557 but was closed when Elizabeth came to the throne in 1558. A stone wall used to line the High Street and behind it was the Friary cemetery. Many Tudor Sotonians were buried here, including a wealthy woman buried in a gold-embroidered skirt. Little remains of the original buildings, only the half round tower which used to be the Friary dovecote, the Friary gate which lead out onto the Shambles, the poorest distict of the town, and the Friary reredorter, or latrine which was built out over the town moat which provided a means of flushing the toilet. ross the car park, which was built on top of the cloisters, cross C the road and head north a few metres to the archaeological site on the left side of the High Street
Wine Vaults Home of the Fleming family and later to a number of the town’s mayors. In the Tudor period Thomas Thomas, a Welshman and follower of Henry Tudor, owned the house, but he was associated with Edmund Dudley, who was executed for treason in 1510 by Henry VIII, and the property was seized by the crown. Later it was the home of John Capelyn, a wealthy merchant and town mayor who helped found the grammar school in Winkle Street. Head north to the junction with Bernard Street and cross the road to Holy Rood Church
Holy Rood Church This church was the scene of a magnificent occasion in 1554 when Philip of Spain came to Southampton. He was on his way to marry Queen Mary Tudor, but he and his retinue, who came in 140 ships, stayed in Southampton for a few days first and worshipped in this church. If you walk down Holy Rood Place, to the north of the Church you can see the diaper brickwork of a Tudor mansion built on the site of the vicarage. The house was later home to Lawrence Prowse, Captain of the Angel, one of the Southampton ships that fought the Armada in 1588.
Please turn over
beginning of th e e Th Tudor walk
HANOV
You’re now half way on the Tudor Walk...
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www.twitter.com/TudorRevels
ALK
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Pass through the gate and turn right past West Gate hall
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WIN
est Gate Hall originally The Fish Market W & Cloth Hall The town owned many public buildings and warehouses dedicated to particular trades. West Gate Hall used to stand in St Michael’s Square, in front of the church, it stood on stilts and its lower chamber was open to the elements. It was here that the town fish market was located. Above was the town cloth hall and merchants from all over England would come here to buy and sell cloth. Merchants from Kendal were so numerous that they even had a room named after them at the Dolphin Inn. The fish market building was moved in 1634 after complaints from the parishioners using St Michael’s church about the stench of fish. Head between the houses and the town wall along Cuckoo Lane
Cuckoo Lane In the Tudor period this area was used to build racks for stretching cloth after washing and dyeing. Dyeing was a very unpleasant activity and there were many complaints about it happening within the precincts of the town.
QUEE N’S T ER
WALK
T
The gate-tower and wall were built after the French sacked the town in 1338. Henry VIII paid for the defences to be upgraded and the gun ports in the front of the tower probably date from this time. Dwellers in west gate were told off in 1602 for “throwing downe ther water into the streets whereby they do decay the paving. And in tyme of winter in open weather do Cawsse the streets to be filthy and durty And in frost to be so glassy with Ice that no man is able to travel that way without danger”.
T
RACE
LOWER CANAL
VISE
STREE
The West Gate
ARD S
E ST
HIGH
On the quay was a large crane which used a treadmill to lift cargo out of the ships. The town had a paid official who looked after the crane and received a town livery. Such was the cranes’ importance that they appear on sixteenth century town maps. On the south side of the quay was the town’s main toilet. The town toilets all had descriptive names, such as the jakes, the little house of easement and the house of sighs. There were constant complaints about the stench and piling up of dung. Nearby was a salt-works where the polluted seawater was boiled down to make salt. The locals complained about the smoke from that as well.
BERN
ST
TGA T
The Galley Quay
West Quay
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St MICHAEL’S
www.tudorrevels.co.uk
NE
Blue Anchor Lane
Head south towards the West Gate
ALLS
BL ANCH UE OR LA
In the Tudor period it was officially known as My Lord’s Lane after Lord Chief Justice Richard Lyster, who lived in Tudor House during the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI. The alternative name Piss Pot Alley was due to his servants emptying the chamber pots out of the overhanging upper storeys.
Southampton owed much of its wealth in the medieval and early Tudor period to the visits of Italian merchants. Ships from Genoa, Lucca, Ragusa, Florence and the galleys of Venice brought luxury goods into the town. They had their own quay just outside the Postern Gate where they would unload goods such as carpets, ivory, leopard skins and silks. The fleets came less often during the reign of Henry VIII and he visited the town to encourage them to maintain their trade with England. He spoilt things rather by asking if he could ‘borrow’ the guns from the fleet. One Italian admiral and his ship found himself stuck in Southampton for 18 months while the Italian ambassador tried to get the guns back. At the south end of the quay was a shipyard, most of the ships owned by Southampton merchants were of small tonnage but they still managed to travel to Newfoundland catching fish and bring it back to the fish market in St Michael’s square.
WEST ST
SIMNEL ST
Gods House Gate/old bowling green The Wool House Beaulieu Abbey used this building as their wool warehouse, and it is the only surviving example of the many warehouses that stood in this area in the Tudor period. Italian merchants bought up the English wool and it was brought here to be packed into wool-sacks ready for export. During the reign of Henry VII an official wool-packers guild was established here to undertake the packing of the pokes of wool. It was unusual in that all its members and its wardens were women, the first being a woman called Elizabeth Burgess. During the reign of Queen Elizabeth several of the town buildings were rented out to privateers who used them to store their prize goods which they looted from Spanish, Portuguese and French vessels under the reprisal system. The mayor of Southampton as Admiral of the Port also held a court which heard cases of disputed prize ships. The Privateering Earl of Cumberland leased the town warehouses for his successful voyages in the 1590s, his main captured cargoes being ginger and sugar. Amongst other famous privateers who used the port was Sir Walter Raleigh whose prize cargoes included elephant tusks. Cross French Street and as you cross if you look left you will see the stone remains of the Weigh House where heavy goods were weighed for customs duties. The honorary post of Weigher of Wools was often given to a Royal favourite. In Henry VIII’s reign it was held by Sir Henry Norris who was later executed accused of being one of Queen Anne Boleyn’s alleged lovers. Head east down Porters Lane to the Water Gate.
Water Gate
BAC
alk west down Blue Anchor lane to the original quayside W on Western Esplanade.
HAMTUM ST
T HE W
Always a prominent tenement building, in 1491 John Dawtry, after marrying Jane William the wealthy widow who owned Tudor House, extensively remodelled the property. He gained permission from the town to increase the frontage onto Bugle Street and also into Blue Anchor Lane. This extension can still be seen if you stand at the top of the lane. Dawtrey was later knighted by Henry VIII for services to the crown for the work he did on renovating Southampton’s defences and for overseeing the building of Henry’s flagship, the Mary Rose. Several of the internal original timbers in the building are of the same date as the Mary Rose. The main frontage of the building was remodelled when it was turned into a museum in 1912 but still manages to preserve the essence of the original house.
BACK OF
Tudor House
CASTLE WAY
FOR RES TV
I EW
ALBION PL.
Bull Hall The brick gate piers mark the back entrance to Bull Hall. Once a large medieval house, the property had originally been in the possession of a former mayor and merchant of the town, Henry Huttoft. His daughter Dorothy married the Florentine merchant and some time spy Antonio Guidotti. Unfortunately he involved his father-in-law in some risky business ventures and Huffoft was financially ruined in 1540 and this probably was when the property passed to the Wriothesley Family who were to become Earls of Southampton. The first Earl, Thomas Wriothesely [1505-50] worked for Thomas Cromwell and Cardinal Wolsey and obtained lands in Hampshire when the monasteries were dissolved, included Titchfield Abbey and Beaulieu Abbey. The second Earl [1545-81] was a staunch Catholic and involved in plots against Queen Elizabeth working in league with the Spanish. The third Earl [1573-1624] was a theatre-lover and Shakespeare’s patron. Condemned by Elizabeth for supporting the Earl of Essex’s rebellion his property of Bull Hall was seized by the Queen and he languished in the Tower but escaped execution being released when James I ascended the throne. Follow the lane down the slope, and at the end you will see the remains of a tower
St Barbara’s Tower There was no standing army in England at this time so towns like Southampton were responsible for their own defence. The town walls and towers were sub-divided and attributed to various wealthy towns people and craft guilds. This tower was looked after by the brewers and bakers, it was a two storey gun tower. St Barbara was a very popular saint before the Reformation and was said to have lived in a tower. As well as having an association as a patron of gunners she was also a help to those suffering from fevers and who were near to death. Head down the steps and cross Bugle Street to the Wool House
which was not free to pupils, was set up in Winkle St, adjacent to God’s House gate, following endowments from William Capon and John Capelyn. The boys were taught in a loft above the town stables, town boys paid 6d a quarter and others 16d and the schoolmaster received a salary of £10 which the town paid. One of the most prominent masters was Adrian a Saravia a Protestant refugee who had a house next to St Juliens. A number of Tudor scholars and diplomats were taught at the school including Sir Thomas Lake who became secretary to Sir Francis Walsingham, and was known by the name ‘Swiftsure’ and his brother Arthur Lake, Bishop of Wells. The school remained on this site for 142 years.
Only the west half of the gate survives. In the Tudor period this was the main gate by which visitors by sea came to Southampton. The gate had three sundials and a pair of carved lions stood guard on either side. During the visit of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V in 1521-2 the watergate was repointed and whitewashed, the painters had to hang from the battlements in cradles. It was also heavily fortified, when there were rumours of French attack an earthwork was built on the quay outside and bronze cannon were dug into the quay ready to fire at the attacking French ships. One such attack happened in 1542 when one of the town gunners, Harmon Smith, was killed when his gun exploded. Head across to Winkle Street
St Juliens known as The French Church St Julians chapel escaped the worst ravages of the Reformation as it played down its religious significance and focused instead on the support of the alms houses on the site. Almshouses were often built near to town gates so that travellers and pilgrims would be encouraged to give alms and the foundations were also a place where travellers could rest. The chapel was dedicated to St Julien the Hospitaler, patron saint of travellers who, it is said, built an inn and a hospital near a wide river to offer succour to both travellers and the poor. The whole site was and is still held by Queens College Oxford, but this did not prevent Elizabeth 1 offering the use of the Chapel to French and Walloon Protestant refugees who were fleeing from persecution and religious wars in the Low Countries and France during the second half of the sixteenth century. These merchant strangers did much to boost the flagging economy of Southampton during Elizabeth’s reign particularly by setting up weaving and cloth making in the town.
Edward VI school Was originally sited on the right of Winkle Street adjacent to Gods House gate. One of the consequences of the Reformation was that the usual place for boys to get an education, the monasteries, was no longer available. Instead there was the rise of the Grammar School, independent foundations usually endowed by wealthy local merchants and burgesses. These schools gained their licences from the crown, particularly Edward VI. Southampton’s Free School,
Outside of God’s House gate was the Saltmarsh, grazing grounds for horses and cattle, oyster beds and what is believed to the oldest bowling green in the world. Today bowls is considered a sedate past-time but in the sixteenth century it was thought to turn men into gamblers, distract apprentices from their work, and considered a great vice. However despite many tracts written against the playing of games and many fines imposed upon the players it continued to be very popular. Games did get heated however and in the same year Drake played bowls as he waited the arrival of the Spanish Armada, two former mayors of Southampton were fined for fisticuffs at the old bowling green. Follow the line of the wall to the Friary Gate
Friary Gate House The Franciscan Friary was transformed by Henry VII into a house of Observant Friars in 1499 but within a generation it was dissolved by Henry VIII; Friar Peacock did not help matters by preaching a sermon against Henry VIII in Winchester Cathedral, and he was dragged off to prison in 1534. The Friary was then given to the Augustine Order until it was finally suppressed in 1538 when John Peyll and five companions surrendered the premises. It included a quire, church, vestry, chapter house and cloister, frater, infirmary, tailor’s house, parlour, kitchen and washhouse and a library. The friary was briefly reinstated under Mary Tudor in 1557 but was closed when Elizabeth came to the throne in 1558. A stone wall used to line the High Street and behind it was the Friary cemetery. Many Tudor Sotonians were buried here, including a wealthy woman buried in a gold-embroidered skirt. Little remains of the original buildings, only the half round tower which used to be the Friary dovecote, the Friary gate which lead out onto the Shambles, the poorest distict of the town, and the Friary reredorter, or latrine which was built out over the town moat which provided a means of flushing the toilet. ross the car park, which was built on top of the cloisters, cross C the road and head north a few metres to the archaeological site on the left side of the High Street
Wine Vaults Home of the Fleming family and later to a number of the town’s mayors. In the Tudor period Thomas Thomas, a Welshman and follower of Henry Tudor, owned the house, but he was associated with Edmund Dudley, who was executed for treason in 1510 by Henry VIII, and the property was seized by the crown. Later it was the home of John Capelyn, a wealthy merchant and town mayor who helped found the grammar school in Winkle Street. Head north to the junction with Bernard Street and cross the road to Holy Rood Church
Holy Rood Church This church was the scene of a magnificent occasion in 1554 when Philip of Spain came to Southampton. He was on his way to marry Queen Mary Tudor, but he and his retinue, who came in 140 ships, stayed in Southampton for a few days first and worshipped in this church. If you walk down Holy Rood Place, to the north of the Church you can see the diaper brickwork of a Tudor mansion built on the site of the vicarage. The house was later home to Lawrence Prowse, Captain of the Angel, one of the Southampton ships that fought the Armada in 1588.
Please turn over
beginning of th e e Th Tudor walk
HANOV
You’re now half way on the Tudor Walk...
ER BUIL
BARGATE ST
DINGS
YORK W
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ALK
WES
LAN
E BRE
WH OU
Pass through the gate and turn right past West Gate hall
SE L
ANE
BRITA
IN ST
ALL
S
POR TER
S LA
KLE
ST
KO
F TH
EW
NE
WIN
est Gate Hall originally The Fish Market W & Cloth Hall The town owned many public buildings and warehouses dedicated to particular trades. West Gate Hall used to stand in St Michael’s Square, in front of the church, it stood on stilts and its lower chamber was open to the elements. It was here that the town fish market was located. Above was the town cloth hall and merchants from all over England would come here to buy and sell cloth. Merchants from Kendal were so numerous that they even had a room named after them at the Dolphin Inn. The fish market building was moved in 1634 after complaints from the parishioners using St Michael’s church about the stench of fish. Head between the houses and the town wall along Cuckoo Lane
Cuckoo Lane In the Tudor period this area was used to build racks for stretching cloth after washing and dyeing. Dyeing was a very unpleasant activity and there were many complaints about it happening within the precincts of the town.
QUEE N’S T ER
WALK
T
The gate-tower and wall were built after the French sacked the town in 1338. Henry VIII paid for the defences to be upgraded and the gun ports in the front of the tower probably date from this time. Dwellers in west gate were told off in 1602 for “throwing downe ther water into the streets whereby they do decay the paving. And in tyme of winter in open weather do Cawsse the streets to be filthy and durty And in frost to be so glassy with Ice that no man is able to travel that way without danger”.
T
RACE
LOWER CANAL
VISE
STREE
The West Gate
ARD S
E ST
HIGH
On the quay was a large crane which used a treadmill to lift cargo out of the ships. The town had a paid official who looked after the crane and received a town livery. Such was the cranes’ importance that they appear on sixteenth century town maps. On the south side of the quay was the town’s main toilet. The town toilets all had descriptive names, such as the jakes, the little house of easement and the house of sighs. There were constant complaints about the stench and piling up of dung. Nearby was a salt-works where the polluted seawater was boiled down to make salt. The locals complained about the smoke from that as well.
BERN
ST
TGA T
The Galley Quay
West Quay
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St MICHAEL’S
www.tudorrevels.co.uk
NE
Blue Anchor Lane
Head south towards the West Gate
ALLS
BL ANCH UE OR LA
In the Tudor period it was officially known as My Lord’s Lane after Lord Chief Justice Richard Lyster, who lived in Tudor House during the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI. The alternative name Piss Pot Alley was due to his servants emptying the chamber pots out of the overhanging upper storeys.
Southampton owed much of its wealth in the medieval and early Tudor period to the visits of Italian merchants. Ships from Genoa, Lucca, Ragusa, Florence and the galleys of Venice brought luxury goods into the town. They had their own quay just outside the Postern Gate where they would unload goods such as carpets, ivory, leopard skins and silks. The fleets came less often during the reign of Henry VIII and he visited the town to encourage them to maintain their trade with England. He spoilt things rather by asking if he could ‘borrow’ the guns from the fleet. One Italian admiral and his ship found himself stuck in Southampton for 18 months while the Italian ambassador tried to get the guns back. At the south end of the quay was a shipyard, most of the ships owned by Southampton merchants were of small tonnage but they still managed to travel to Newfoundland catching fish and bring it back to the fish market in St Michael’s square.
WEST ST
SIMNEL ST
Gods House Gate/old bowling green The Wool House Beaulieu Abbey used this building as their wool warehouse, and it is the only surviving example of the many warehouses that stood in this area in the Tudor period. Italian merchants bought up the English wool and it was brought here to be packed into wool-sacks ready for export. During the reign of Henry VII an official wool-packers guild was established here to undertake the packing of the pokes of wool. It was unusual in that all its members and its wardens were women, the first being a woman called Elizabeth Burgess. During the reign of Queen Elizabeth several of the town buildings were rented out to privateers who used them to store their prize goods which they looted from Spanish, Portuguese and French vessels under the reprisal system. The mayor of Southampton as Admiral of the Port also held a court which heard cases of disputed prize ships. The Privateering Earl of Cumberland leased the town warehouses for his successful voyages in the 1590s, his main captured cargoes being ginger and sugar. Amongst other famous privateers who used the port was Sir Walter Raleigh whose prize cargoes included elephant tusks. Cross French Street and as you cross if you look left you will see the stone remains of the Weigh House where heavy goods were weighed for customs duties. The honorary post of Weigher of Wools was often given to a Royal favourite. In Henry VIII’s reign it was held by Sir Henry Norris who was later executed accused of being one of Queen Anne Boleyn’s alleged lovers. Head east down Porters Lane to the Water Gate.
Water Gate
BAC
alk west down Blue Anchor lane to the original quayside W on Western Esplanade.
HAMTUM ST
T HE W
Always a prominent tenement building, in 1491 John Dawtry, after marrying Jane William the wealthy widow who owned Tudor House, extensively remodelled the property. He gained permission from the town to increase the frontage onto Bugle Street and also into Blue Anchor Lane. This extension can still be seen if you stand at the top of the lane. Dawtrey was later knighted by Henry VIII for services to the crown for the work he did on renovating Southampton’s defences and for overseeing the building of Henry’s flagship, the Mary Rose. Several of the internal original timbers in the building are of the same date as the Mary Rose. The main frontage of the building was remodelled when it was turned into a museum in 1912 but still manages to preserve the essence of the original house.
BACK OF
Tudor House
CASTLE WAY
FOR RES TV
I EW
ALBION PL.
Bull Hall The brick gate piers mark the back entrance to Bull Hall. Once a large medieval house, the property had originally been in the possession of a former mayor and merchant of the town, Henry Huttoft. His daughter Dorothy married the Florentine merchant and some time spy Antonio Guidotti. Unfortunately he involved his father-in-law in some risky business ventures and Huffoft was financially ruined in 1540 and this probably was when the property passed to the Wriothesley Family who were to become Earls of Southampton. The first Earl, Thomas Wriothesely [1505-50] worked for Thomas Cromwell and Cardinal Wolsey and obtained lands in Hampshire when the monasteries were dissolved, included Titchfield Abbey and Beaulieu Abbey. The second Earl [1545-81] was a staunch Catholic and involved in plots against Queen Elizabeth working in league with the Spanish. The third Earl [1573-1624] was a theatre-lover and Shakespeare’s patron. Condemned by Elizabeth for supporting the Earl of Essex’s rebellion his property of Bull Hall was seized by the Queen and he languished in the Tower but escaped execution being released when James I ascended the throne. Follow the lane down the slope, and at the end you will see the remains of a tower
St Barbara’s Tower There was no standing army in England at this time so towns like Southampton were responsible for their own defence. The town walls and towers were sub-divided and attributed to various wealthy towns people and craft guilds. This tower was looked after by the brewers and bakers, it was a two storey gun tower. St Barbara was a very popular saint before the Reformation and was said to have lived in a tower. As well as having an association as a patron of gunners she was also a help to those suffering from fevers and who were near to death. Head down the steps and cross Bugle Street to the Wool House
which was not free to pupils, was set up in Winkle St, adjacent to God’s House gate, following endowments from William Capon and John Capelyn. The boys were taught in a loft above the town stables, town boys paid 6d a quarter and others 16d and the schoolmaster received a salary of £10 which the town paid. One of the most prominent masters was Adrian a Saravia a Protestant refugee who had a house next to St Juliens. A number of Tudor scholars and diplomats were taught at the school including Sir Thomas Lake who became secretary to Sir Francis Walsingham, and was known by the name ‘Swiftsure’ and his brother Arthur Lake, Bishop of Wells. The school remained on this site for 142 years.
Only the west half of the gate survives. In the Tudor period this was the main gate by which visitors by sea came to Southampton. The gate had three sundials and a pair of carved lions stood guard on either side. During the visit of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V in 1521-2 the watergate was repointed and whitewashed, the painters had to hang from the battlements in cradles. It was also heavily fortified, when there were rumours of French attack an earthwork was built on the quay outside and bronze cannon were dug into the quay ready to fire at the attacking French ships. One such attack happened in 1542 when one of the town gunners, Harmon Smith, was killed when his gun exploded. Head across to Winkle Street
St Juliens known as The French Church St Julians chapel escaped the worst ravages of the Reformation as it played down its religious significance and focused instead on the support of the alms houses on the site. Almshouses were often built near to town gates so that travellers and pilgrims would be encouraged to give alms and the foundations were also a place where travellers could rest. The chapel was dedicated to St Julien the Hospitaler, patron saint of travellers who, it is said, built an inn and a hospital near a wide river to offer succour to both travellers and the poor. The whole site was and is still held by Queens College Oxford, but this did not prevent Elizabeth 1 offering the use of the Chapel to French and Walloon Protestant refugees who were fleeing from persecution and religious wars in the Low Countries and France during the second half of the sixteenth century. These merchant strangers did much to boost the flagging economy of Southampton during Elizabeth’s reign particularly by setting up weaving and cloth making in the town.
Edward VI school Was originally sited on the right of Winkle Street adjacent to Gods House gate. One of the consequences of the Reformation was that the usual place for boys to get an education, the monasteries, was no longer available. Instead there was the rise of the Grammar School, independent foundations usually endowed by wealthy local merchants and burgesses. These schools gained their licences from the crown, particularly Edward VI. Southampton’s Free School,
Outside of God’s House gate was the Saltmarsh, grazing grounds for horses and cattle, oyster beds and what is believed to the oldest bowling green in the world. Today bowls is considered a sedate past-time but in the sixteenth century it was thought to turn men into gamblers, distract apprentices from their work, and considered a great vice. However despite many tracts written against the playing of games and many fines imposed upon the players it continued to be very popular. Games did get heated however and in the same year Drake played bowls as he waited the arrival of the Spanish Armada, two former mayors of Southampton were fined for fisticuffs at the old bowling green. Follow the line of the wall to the Friary Gate
Friary Gate House The Franciscan Friary was transformed by Henry VII into a house of Observant Friars in 1499 but within a generation it was dissolved by Henry VIII; Friar Peacock did not help matters by preaching a sermon against Henry VIII in Winchester Cathedral, and he was dragged off to prison in 1534. The Friary was then given to the Augustine Order until it was finally suppressed in 1538 when John Peyll and five companions surrendered the premises. It included a quire, church, vestry, chapter house and cloister, frater, infirmary, tailor’s house, parlour, kitchen and washhouse and a library. The friary was briefly reinstated under Mary Tudor in 1557 but was closed when Elizabeth came to the throne in 1558. A stone wall used to line the High Street and behind it was the Friary cemetery. Many Tudor Sotonians were buried here, including a wealthy woman buried in a gold-embroidered skirt. Little remains of the original buildings, only the half round tower which used to be the Friary dovecote, the Friary gate which lead out onto the Shambles, the poorest distict of the town, and the Friary reredorter, or latrine which was built out over the town moat which provided a means of flushing the toilet. ross the car park, which was built on top of the cloisters, cross C the road and head north a few metres to the archaeological site on the left side of the High Street
Wine Vaults Home of the Fleming family and later to a number of the town’s mayors. In the Tudor period Thomas Thomas, a Welshman and follower of Henry Tudor, owned the house, but he was associated with Edmund Dudley, who was executed for treason in 1510 by Henry VIII, and the property was seized by the crown. Later it was the home of John Capelyn, a wealthy merchant and town mayor who helped found the grammar school in Winkle Street. Head north to the junction with Bernard Street and cross the road to Holy Rood Church
Holy Rood Church This church was the scene of a magnificent occasion in 1554 when Philip of Spain came to Southampton. He was on his way to marry Queen Mary Tudor, but he and his retinue, who came in 140 ships, stayed in Southampton for a few days first and worshipped in this church. If you walk down Holy Rood Place, to the north of the Church you can see the diaper brickwork of a Tudor mansion built on the site of the vicarage. The house was later home to Lawrence Prowse, Captain of the Angel, one of the Southampton ships that fought the Armada in 1588.
Please turn over
beginning of th e e Th Tudor walk
HANOV
You’re now half way on the Tudor Walk...
ER BUIL
BARGATE ST
DINGS
YORK W
www.twitter.com/TudorRevels
ALK
WES
LAN
E BRE
WH OU
Pass through the gate and turn right past West Gate hall
SE L
ANE
BRITA
IN ST
ALL
S
POR TER
S LA
KLE
ST
KO
F TH
EW
NE
WIN
est Gate Hall originally The Fish Market W & Cloth Hall The town owned many public buildings and warehouses dedicated to particular trades. West Gate Hall used to stand in St Michael’s Square, in front of the church, it stood on stilts and its lower chamber was open to the elements. It was here that the town fish market was located. Above was the town cloth hall and merchants from all over England would come here to buy and sell cloth. Merchants from Kendal were so numerous that they even had a room named after them at the Dolphin Inn. The fish market building was moved in 1634 after complaints from the parishioners using St Michael’s church about the stench of fish. Head between the houses and the town wall along Cuckoo Lane
Cuckoo Lane In the Tudor period this area was used to build racks for stretching cloth after washing and dyeing. Dyeing was a very unpleasant activity and there were many complaints about it happening within the precincts of the town.
QUEE N’S T ER
WALK
T
The gate-tower and wall were built after the French sacked the town in 1338. Henry VIII paid for the defences to be upgraded and the gun ports in the front of the tower probably date from this time. Dwellers in west gate were told off in 1602 for “throwing downe ther water into the streets whereby they do decay the paving. And in tyme of winter in open weather do Cawsse the streets to be filthy and durty And in frost to be so glassy with Ice that no man is able to travel that way without danger”.
T
RACE
LOWER CANAL
VISE
STREE
The West Gate
ARD S
E ST
HIGH
On the quay was a large crane which used a treadmill to lift cargo out of the ships. The town had a paid official who looked after the crane and received a town livery. Such was the cranes’ importance that they appear on sixteenth century town maps. On the south side of the quay was the town’s main toilet. The town toilets all had descriptive names, such as the jakes, the little house of easement and the house of sighs. There were constant complaints about the stench and piling up of dung. Nearby was a salt-works where the polluted seawater was boiled down to make salt. The locals complained about the smoke from that as well.
BERN
ST
TGA T
The Galley Quay
West Quay
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St MICHAEL’S
www.tudorrevels.co.uk
NE
Blue Anchor Lane
Head south towards the West Gate
ALLS
BL ANCH UE OR LA
In the Tudor period it was officially known as My Lord’s Lane after Lord Chief Justice Richard Lyster, who lived in Tudor House during the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI. The alternative name Piss Pot Alley was due to his servants emptying the chamber pots out of the overhanging upper storeys.
Southampton owed much of its wealth in the medieval and early Tudor period to the visits of Italian merchants. Ships from Genoa, Lucca, Ragusa, Florence and the galleys of Venice brought luxury goods into the town. They had their own quay just outside the Postern Gate where they would unload goods such as carpets, ivory, leopard skins and silks. The fleets came less often during the reign of Henry VIII and he visited the town to encourage them to maintain their trade with England. He spoilt things rather by asking if he could ‘borrow’ the guns from the fleet. One Italian admiral and his ship found himself stuck in Southampton for 18 months while the Italian ambassador tried to get the guns back. At the south end of the quay was a shipyard, most of the ships owned by Southampton merchants were of small tonnage but they still managed to travel to Newfoundland catching fish and bring it back to the fish market in St Michael’s square.
WEST ST
SIMNEL ST
Gods House Gate/old bowling green The Wool House Beaulieu Abbey used this building as their wool warehouse, and it is the only surviving example of the many warehouses that stood in this area in the Tudor period. Italian merchants bought up the English wool and it was brought here to be packed into wool-sacks ready for export. During the reign of Henry VII an official wool-packers guild was established here to undertake the packing of the pokes of wool. It was unusual in that all its members and its wardens were women, the first being a woman called Elizabeth Burgess. During the reign of Queen Elizabeth several of the town buildings were rented out to privateers who used them to store their prize goods which they looted from Spanish, Portuguese and French vessels under the reprisal system. The mayor of Southampton as Admiral of the Port also held a court which heard cases of disputed prize ships. The Privateering Earl of Cumberland leased the town warehouses for his successful voyages in the 1590s, his main captured cargoes being ginger and sugar. Amongst other famous privateers who used the port was Sir Walter Raleigh whose prize cargoes included elephant tusks. Cross French Street and as you cross if you look left you will see the stone remains of the Weigh House where heavy goods were weighed for customs duties. The honorary post of Weigher of Wools was often given to a Royal favourite. In Henry VIII’s reign it was held by Sir Henry Norris who was later executed accused of being one of Queen Anne Boleyn’s alleged lovers. Head east down Porters Lane to the Water Gate.
Water Gate
BAC
alk west down Blue Anchor lane to the original quayside W on Western Esplanade.
HAMTUM ST
T HE W
Always a prominent tenement building, in 1491 John Dawtry, after marrying Jane William the wealthy widow who owned Tudor House, extensively remodelled the property. He gained permission from the town to increase the frontage onto Bugle Street and also into Blue Anchor Lane. This extension can still be seen if you stand at the top of the lane. Dawtrey was later knighted by Henry VIII for services to the crown for the work he did on renovating Southampton’s defences and for overseeing the building of Henry’s flagship, the Mary Rose. Several of the internal original timbers in the building are of the same date as the Mary Rose. The main frontage of the building was remodelled when it was turned into a museum in 1912 but still manages to preserve the essence of the original house.
BACK OF
Tudor House
CASTLE WAY
FOR RES TV
I EW
ALBION PL.
Bull Hall The brick gate piers mark the back entrance to Bull Hall. Once a large medieval house, the property had originally been in the possession of a former mayor and merchant of the town, Henry Huttoft. His daughter Dorothy married the Florentine merchant and some time spy Antonio Guidotti. Unfortunately he involved his father-in-law in some risky business ventures and Huffoft was financially ruined in 1540 and this probably was when the property passed to the Wriothesley Family who were to become Earls of Southampton. The first Earl, Thomas Wriothesely [1505-50] worked for Thomas Cromwell and Cardinal Wolsey and obtained lands in Hampshire when the monasteries were dissolved, included Titchfield Abbey and Beaulieu Abbey. The second Earl [1545-81] was a staunch Catholic and involved in plots against Queen Elizabeth working in league with the Spanish. The third Earl [1573-1624] was a theatre-lover and Shakespeare’s patron. Condemned by Elizabeth for supporting the Earl of Essex’s rebellion his property of Bull Hall was seized by the Queen and he languished in the Tower but escaped execution being released when James I ascended the throne. Follow the lane down the slope, and at the end you will see the remains of a tower
St Barbara’s Tower There was no standing army in England at this time so towns like Southampton were responsible for their own defence. The town walls and towers were sub-divided and attributed to various wealthy towns people and craft guilds. This tower was looked after by the brewers and bakers, it was a two storey gun tower. St Barbara was a very popular saint before the Reformation and was said to have lived in a tower. As well as having an association as a patron of gunners she was also a help to those suffering from fevers and who were near to death. Head down the steps and cross Bugle Street to the Wool House
which was not free to pupils, was set up in Winkle St, adjacent to God’s House gate, following endowments from William Capon and John Capelyn. The boys were taught in a loft above the town stables, town boys paid 6d a quarter and others 16d and the schoolmaster received a salary of £10 which the town paid. One of the most prominent masters was Adrian a Saravia a Protestant refugee who had a house next to St Juliens. A number of Tudor scholars and diplomats were taught at the school including Sir Thomas Lake who became secretary to Sir Francis Walsingham, and was known by the name ‘Swiftsure’ and his brother Arthur Lake, Bishop of Wells. The school remained on this site for 142 years.
Only the west half of the gate survives. In the Tudor period this was the main gate by which visitors by sea came to Southampton. The gate had three sundials and a pair of carved lions stood guard on either side. During the visit of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V in 1521-2 the watergate was repointed and whitewashed, the painters had to hang from the battlements in cradles. It was also heavily fortified, when there were rumours of French attack an earthwork was built on the quay outside and bronze cannon were dug into the quay ready to fire at the attacking French ships. One such attack happened in 1542 when one of the town gunners, Harmon Smith, was killed when his gun exploded. Head across to Winkle Street
St Juliens known as The French Church St Julians chapel escaped the worst ravages of the Reformation as it played down its religious significance and focused instead on the support of the alms houses on the site. Almshouses were often built near to town gates so that travellers and pilgrims would be encouraged to give alms and the foundations were also a place where travellers could rest. The chapel was dedicated to St Julien the Hospitaler, patron saint of travellers who, it is said, built an inn and a hospital near a wide river to offer succour to both travellers and the poor. The whole site was and is still held by Queens College Oxford, but this did not prevent Elizabeth 1 offering the use of the Chapel to French and Walloon Protestant refugees who were fleeing from persecution and religious wars in the Low Countries and France during the second half of the sixteenth century. These merchant strangers did much to boost the flagging economy of Southampton during Elizabeth’s reign particularly by setting up weaving and cloth making in the town.
Edward VI school Was originally sited on the right of Winkle Street adjacent to Gods House gate. One of the consequences of the Reformation was that the usual place for boys to get an education, the monasteries, was no longer available. Instead there was the rise of the Grammar School, independent foundations usually endowed by wealthy local merchants and burgesses. These schools gained their licences from the crown, particularly Edward VI. Southampton’s Free School,
Outside of God’s House gate was the Saltmarsh, grazing grounds for horses and cattle, oyster beds and what is believed to the oldest bowling green in the world. Today bowls is considered a sedate past-time but in the sixteenth century it was thought to turn men into gamblers, distract apprentices from their work, and considered a great vice. However despite many tracts written against the playing of games and many fines imposed upon the players it continued to be very popular. Games did get heated however and in the same year Drake played bowls as he waited the arrival of the Spanish Armada, two former mayors of Southampton were fined for fisticuffs at the old bowling green. Follow the line of the wall to the Friary Gate
Friary Gate House The Franciscan Friary was transformed by Henry VII into a house of Observant Friars in 1499 but within a generation it was dissolved by Henry VIII; Friar Peacock did not help matters by preaching a sermon against Henry VIII in Winchester Cathedral, and he was dragged off to prison in 1534. The Friary was then given to the Augustine Order until it was finally suppressed in 1538 when John Peyll and five companions surrendered the premises. It included a quire, church, vestry, chapter house and cloister, frater, infirmary, tailor’s house, parlour, kitchen and washhouse and a library. The friary was briefly reinstated under Mary Tudor in 1557 but was closed when Elizabeth came to the throne in 1558. A stone wall used to line the High Street and behind it was the Friary cemetery. Many Tudor Sotonians were buried here, including a wealthy woman buried in a gold-embroidered skirt. Little remains of the original buildings, only the half round tower which used to be the Friary dovecote, the Friary gate which lead out onto the Shambles, the poorest distict of the town, and the Friary reredorter, or latrine which was built out over the town moat which provided a means of flushing the toilet. ross the car park, which was built on top of the cloisters, cross C the road and head north a few metres to the archaeological site on the left side of the High Street
Wine Vaults Home of the Fleming family and later to a number of the town’s mayors. In the Tudor period Thomas Thomas, a Welshman and follower of Henry Tudor, owned the house, but he was associated with Edmund Dudley, who was executed for treason in 1510 by Henry VIII, and the property was seized by the crown. Later it was the home of John Capelyn, a wealthy merchant and town mayor who helped found the grammar school in Winkle Street. Head north to the junction with Bernard Street and cross the road to Holy Rood Church
Holy Rood Church This church was the scene of a magnificent occasion in 1554 when Philip of Spain came to Southampton. He was on his way to marry Queen Mary Tudor, but he and his retinue, who came in 140 ships, stayed in Southampton for a few days first and worshipped in this church. If you walk down Holy Rood Place, to the north of the Church you can see the diaper brickwork of a Tudor mansion built on the site of the vicarage. The house was later home to Lawrence Prowse, Captain of the Angel, one of the Southampton ships that fought the Armada in 1588.
Please turn over
beginning of th e e Th Tudor walk
HANOV
You’re now half way on the Tudor Walk...
ER BUIL
BARGATE ST
DINGS
YORK W
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ALK
WES
LAN
E BRE
WH OU
Pass through the gate and turn right past West Gate hall
SE L
ANE
BRITA
IN ST
ALL
S
POR TER
S LA
KLE
ST
KO
F TH
EW
NE
WIN
est Gate Hall originally The Fish Market W & Cloth Hall The town owned many public buildings and warehouses dedicated to particular trades. West Gate Hall used to stand in St Michael’s Square, in front of the church, it stood on stilts and its lower chamber was open to the elements. It was here that the town fish market was located. Above was the town cloth hall and merchants from all over England would come here to buy and sell cloth. Merchants from Kendal were so numerous that they even had a room named after them at the Dolphin Inn. The fish market building was moved in 1634 after complaints from the parishioners using St Michael’s church about the stench of fish. Head between the houses and the town wall along Cuckoo Lane
Cuckoo Lane In the Tudor period this area was used to build racks for stretching cloth after washing and dyeing. Dyeing was a very unpleasant activity and there were many complaints about it happening within the precincts of the town.
QUEE N’S T ER
WALK
T
The gate-tower and wall were built after the French sacked the town in 1338. Henry VIII paid for the defences to be upgraded and the gun ports in the front of the tower probably date from this time. Dwellers in west gate were told off in 1602 for “throwing downe ther water into the streets whereby they do decay the paving. And in tyme of winter in open weather do Cawsse the streets to be filthy and durty And in frost to be so glassy with Ice that no man is able to travel that way without danger”.
T
RACE
LOWER CANAL
VISE
STREE
The West Gate
ARD S
E ST
HIGH
On the quay was a large crane which used a treadmill to lift cargo out of the ships. The town had a paid official who looked after the crane and received a town livery. Such was the cranes’ importance that they appear on sixteenth century town maps. On the south side of the quay was the town’s main toilet. The town toilets all had descriptive names, such as the jakes, the little house of easement and the house of sighs. There were constant complaints about the stench and piling up of dung. Nearby was a salt-works where the polluted seawater was boiled down to make salt. The locals complained about the smoke from that as well.
BERN
ST
TGA T
The Galley Quay
West Quay
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St MICHAEL’S
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NE
Blue Anchor Lane
Head south towards the West Gate
ALLS
BL ANCH UE OR LA
In the Tudor period it was officially known as My Lord’s Lane after Lord Chief Justice Richard Lyster, who lived in Tudor House during the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI. The alternative name Piss Pot Alley was due to his servants emptying the chamber pots out of the overhanging upper storeys.
Southampton owed much of its wealth in the medieval and early Tudor period to the visits of Italian merchants. Ships from Genoa, Lucca, Ragusa, Florence and the galleys of Venice brought luxury goods into the town. They had their own quay just outside the Postern Gate where they would unload goods such as carpets, ivory, leopard skins and silks. The fleets came less often during the reign of Henry VIII and he visited the town to encourage them to maintain their trade with England. He spoilt things rather by asking if he could ‘borrow’ the guns from the fleet. One Italian admiral and his ship found himself stuck in Southampton for 18 months while the Italian ambassador tried to get the guns back. At the south end of the quay was a shipyard, most of the ships owned by Southampton merchants were of small tonnage but they still managed to travel to Newfoundland catching fish and bring it back to the fish market in St Michael’s square.
WEST ST
SIMNEL ST
Gods House Gate/old bowling green The Wool House Beaulieu Abbey used this building as their wool warehouse, and it is the only surviving example of the many warehouses that stood in this area in the Tudor period. Italian merchants bought up the English wool and it was brought here to be packed into wool-sacks ready for export. During the reign of Henry VII an official wool-packers guild was established here to undertake the packing of the pokes of wool. It was unusual in that all its members and its wardens were women, the first being a woman called Elizabeth Burgess. During the reign of Queen Elizabeth several of the town buildings were rented out to privateers who used them to store their prize goods which they looted from Spanish, Portuguese and French vessels under the reprisal system. The mayor of Southampton as Admiral of the Port also held a court which heard cases of disputed prize ships. The Privateering Earl of Cumberland leased the town warehouses for his successful voyages in the 1590s, his main captured cargoes being ginger and sugar. Amongst other famous privateers who used the port was Sir Walter Raleigh whose prize cargoes included elephant tusks. Cross French Street and as you cross if you look left you will see the stone remains of the Weigh House where heavy goods were weighed for customs duties. The honorary post of Weigher of Wools was often given to a Royal favourite. In Henry VIII’s reign it was held by Sir Henry Norris who was later executed accused of being one of Queen Anne Boleyn’s alleged lovers. Head east down Porters Lane to the Water Gate.
Water Gate
BAC
alk west down Blue Anchor lane to the original quayside W on Western Esplanade.
HAMTUM ST
T HE W
Always a prominent tenement building, in 1491 John Dawtry, after marrying Jane William the wealthy widow who owned Tudor House, extensively remodelled the property. He gained permission from the town to increase the frontage onto Bugle Street and also into Blue Anchor Lane. This extension can still be seen if you stand at the top of the lane. Dawtrey was later knighted by Henry VIII for services to the crown for the work he did on renovating Southampton’s defences and for overseeing the building of Henry’s flagship, the Mary Rose. Several of the internal original timbers in the building are of the same date as the Mary Rose. The main frontage of the building was remodelled when it was turned into a museum in 1912 but still manages to preserve the essence of the original house.
BACK OF
Tudor House
CASTLE WAY
FOR RES TV
I EW
ALBION PL.
Bull Hall The brick gate piers mark the back entrance to Bull Hall. Once a large medieval house, the property had originally been in the possession of a former mayor and merchant of the town, Henry Huttoft. His daughter Dorothy married the Florentine merchant and some time spy Antonio Guidotti. Unfortunately he involved his father-in-law in some risky business ventures and Huffoft was financially ruined in 1540 and this probably was when the property passed to the Wriothesley Family who were to become Earls of Southampton. The first Earl, Thomas Wriothesely [1505-50] worked for Thomas Cromwell and Cardinal Wolsey and obtained lands in Hampshire when the monasteries were dissolved, included Titchfield Abbey and Beaulieu Abbey. The second Earl [1545-81] was a staunch Catholic and involved in plots against Queen Elizabeth working in league with the Spanish. The third Earl [1573-1624] was a theatre-lover and Shakespeare’s patron. Condemned by Elizabeth for supporting the Earl of Essex’s rebellion his property of Bull Hall was seized by the Queen and he languished in the Tower but escaped execution being released when James I ascended the throne. Follow the lane down the slope, and at the end you will see the remains of a tower
St Barbara’s Tower There was no standing army in England at this time so towns like Southampton were responsible for their own defence. The town walls and towers were sub-divided and attributed to various wealthy towns people and craft guilds. This tower was looked after by the brewers and bakers, it was a two storey gun tower. St Barbara was a very popular saint before the Reformation and was said to have lived in a tower. As well as having an association as a patron of gunners she was also a help to those suffering from fevers and who were near to death. Head down the steps and cross Bugle Street to the Wool House
which was not free to pupils, was set up in Winkle St, adjacent to God’s House gate, following endowments from William Capon and John Capelyn. The boys were taught in a loft above the town stables, town boys paid 6d a quarter and others 16d and the schoolmaster received a salary of £10 which the town paid. One of the most prominent masters was Adrian a Saravia a Protestant refugee who had a house next to St Juliens. A number of Tudor scholars and diplomats were taught at the school including Sir Thomas Lake who became secretary to Sir Francis Walsingham, and was known by the name ‘Swiftsure’ and his brother Arthur Lake, Bishop of Wells. The school remained on this site for 142 years.
Only the west half of the gate survives. In the Tudor period this was the main gate by which visitors by sea came to Southampton. The gate had three sundials and a pair of carved lions stood guard on either side. During the visit of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V in 1521-2 the watergate was repointed and whitewashed, the painters had to hang from the battlements in cradles. It was also heavily fortified, when there were rumours of French attack an earthwork was built on the quay outside and bronze cannon were dug into the quay ready to fire at the attacking French ships. One such attack happened in 1542 when one of the town gunners, Harmon Smith, was killed when his gun exploded. Head across to Winkle Street
St Juliens known as The French Church St Julians chapel escaped the worst ravages of the Reformation as it played down its religious significance and focused instead on the support of the alms houses on the site. Almshouses were often built near to town gates so that travellers and pilgrims would be encouraged to give alms and the foundations were also a place where travellers could rest. The chapel was dedicated to St Julien the Hospitaler, patron saint of travellers who, it is said, built an inn and a hospital near a wide river to offer succour to both travellers and the poor. The whole site was and is still held by Queens College Oxford, but this did not prevent Elizabeth 1 offering the use of the Chapel to French and Walloon Protestant refugees who were fleeing from persecution and religious wars in the Low Countries and France during the second half of the sixteenth century. These merchant strangers did much to boost the flagging economy of Southampton during Elizabeth’s reign particularly by setting up weaving and cloth making in the town.
Edward VI school Was originally sited on the right of Winkle Street adjacent to Gods House gate. One of the consequences of the Reformation was that the usual place for boys to get an education, the monasteries, was no longer available. Instead there was the rise of the Grammar School, independent foundations usually endowed by wealthy local merchants and burgesses. These schools gained their licences from the crown, particularly Edward VI. Southampton’s Free School,
Outside of God’s House gate was the Saltmarsh, grazing grounds for horses and cattle, oyster beds and what is believed to the oldest bowling green in the world. Today bowls is considered a sedate past-time but in the sixteenth century it was thought to turn men into gamblers, distract apprentices from their work, and considered a great vice. However despite many tracts written against the playing of games and many fines imposed upon the players it continued to be very popular. Games did get heated however and in the same year Drake played bowls as he waited the arrival of the Spanish Armada, two former mayors of Southampton were fined for fisticuffs at the old bowling green. Follow the line of the wall to the Friary Gate
Friary Gate House The Franciscan Friary was transformed by Henry VII into a house of Observant Friars in 1499 but within a generation it was dissolved by Henry VIII; Friar Peacock did not help matters by preaching a sermon against Henry VIII in Winchester Cathedral, and he was dragged off to prison in 1534. The Friary was then given to the Augustine Order until it was finally suppressed in 1538 when John Peyll and five companions surrendered the premises. It included a quire, church, vestry, chapter house and cloister, frater, infirmary, tailor’s house, parlour, kitchen and washhouse and a library. The friary was briefly reinstated under Mary Tudor in 1557 but was closed when Elizabeth came to the throne in 1558. A stone wall used to line the High Street and behind it was the Friary cemetery. Many Tudor Sotonians were buried here, including a wealthy woman buried in a gold-embroidered skirt. Little remains of the original buildings, only the half round tower which used to be the Friary dovecote, the Friary gate which lead out onto the Shambles, the poorest distict of the town, and the Friary reredorter, or latrine which was built out over the town moat which provided a means of flushing the toilet. ross the car park, which was built on top of the cloisters, cross C the road and head north a few metres to the archaeological site on the left side of the High Street
Wine Vaults Home of the Fleming family and later to a number of the town’s mayors. In the Tudor period Thomas Thomas, a Welshman and follower of Henry Tudor, owned the house, but he was associated with Edmund Dudley, who was executed for treason in 1510 by Henry VIII, and the property was seized by the crown. Later it was the home of John Capelyn, a wealthy merchant and town mayor who helped found the grammar school in Winkle Street. Head north to the junction with Bernard Street and cross the road to Holy Rood Church
Holy Rood Church This church was the scene of a magnificent occasion in 1554 when Philip of Spain came to Southampton. He was on his way to marry Queen Mary Tudor, but he and his retinue, who came in 140 ships, stayed in Southampton for a few days first and worshipped in this church. If you walk down Holy Rood Place, to the north of the Church you can see the diaper brickwork of a Tudor mansion built on the site of the vicarage. The house was later home to Lawrence Prowse, Captain of the Angel, one of the Southampton ships that fought the Armada in 1588.
Please turn over
beginning of th e e Th Tudor walk
HANOV
You’re now half way on the Tudor Walk...
ER BUIL
BARGATE ST
DINGS
YORK W
www.twitter.com/TudorRevels
ALK
WES
LAN
E BRE
WH OU
Pass through the gate and turn right past West Gate hall
SE L
ANE
BRITA
IN ST
ALL
S
POR TER
S LA
KLE
ST
KO
F TH
EW
NE
WIN
est Gate Hall originally The Fish Market W & Cloth Hall The town owned many public buildings and warehouses dedicated to particular trades. West Gate Hall used to stand in St Michael’s Square, in front of the church, it stood on stilts and its lower chamber was open to the elements. It was here that the town fish market was located. Above was the town cloth hall and merchants from all over England would come here to buy and sell cloth. Merchants from Kendal were so numerous that they even had a room named after them at the Dolphin Inn. The fish market building was moved in 1634 after complaints from the parishioners using St Michael’s church about the stench of fish. Head between the houses and the town wall along Cuckoo Lane
Cuckoo Lane In the Tudor period this area was used to build racks for stretching cloth after washing and dyeing. Dyeing was a very unpleasant activity and there were many complaints about it happening within the precincts of the town.
QUEE N’S T ER
WALK
T
The gate-tower and wall were built after the French sacked the town in 1338. Henry VIII paid for the defences to be upgraded and the gun ports in the front of the tower probably date from this time. Dwellers in west gate were told off in 1602 for “throwing downe ther water into the streets whereby they do decay the paving. And in tyme of winter in open weather do Cawsse the streets to be filthy and durty And in frost to be so glassy with Ice that no man is able to travel that way without danger”.
T
RACE
LOWER CANAL
VISE
STREE
The West Gate
ARD S
E ST
HIGH
On the quay was a large crane which used a treadmill to lift cargo out of the ships. The town had a paid official who looked after the crane and received a town livery. Such was the cranes’ importance that they appear on sixteenth century town maps. On the south side of the quay was the town’s main toilet. The town toilets all had descriptive names, such as the jakes, the little house of easement and the house of sighs. There were constant complaints about the stench and piling up of dung. Nearby was a salt-works where the polluted seawater was boiled down to make salt. The locals complained about the smoke from that as well.
BERN
ST
TGA T
The Galley Quay
West Quay
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St MICHAEL’S
www.tudorrevels.co.uk
NE
Blue Anchor Lane
Head south towards the West Gate
ALLS
BL ANCH UE OR LA
In the Tudor period it was officially known as My Lord’s Lane after Lord Chief Justice Richard Lyster, who lived in Tudor House during the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI. The alternative name Piss Pot Alley was due to his servants emptying the chamber pots out of the overhanging upper storeys.
Southampton owed much of its wealth in the medieval and early Tudor period to the visits of Italian merchants. Ships from Genoa, Lucca, Ragusa, Florence and the galleys of Venice brought luxury goods into the town. They had their own quay just outside the Postern Gate where they would unload goods such as carpets, ivory, leopard skins and silks. The fleets came less often during the reign of Henry VIII and he visited the town to encourage them to maintain their trade with England. He spoilt things rather by asking if he could ‘borrow’ the guns from the fleet. One Italian admiral and his ship found himself stuck in Southampton for 18 months while the Italian ambassador tried to get the guns back. At the south end of the quay was a shipyard, most of the ships owned by Southampton merchants were of small tonnage but they still managed to travel to Newfoundland catching fish and bring it back to the fish market in St Michael’s square.
WEST ST
SIMNEL ST
Gods House Gate/old bowling green The Wool House Beaulieu Abbey used this building as their wool warehouse, and it is the only surviving example of the many warehouses that stood in this area in the Tudor period. Italian merchants bought up the English wool and it was brought here to be packed into wool-sacks ready for export. During the reign of Henry VII an official wool-packers guild was established here to undertake the packing of the pokes of wool. It was unusual in that all its members and its wardens were women, the first being a woman called Elizabeth Burgess. During the reign of Queen Elizabeth several of the town buildings were rented out to privateers who used them to store their prize goods which they looted from Spanish, Portuguese and French vessels under the reprisal system. The mayor of Southampton as Admiral of the Port also held a court which heard cases of disputed prize ships. The Privateering Earl of Cumberland leased the town warehouses for his successful voyages in the 1590s, his main captured cargoes being ginger and sugar. Amongst other famous privateers who used the port was Sir Walter Raleigh whose prize cargoes included elephant tusks. Cross French Street and as you cross if you look left you will see the stone remains of the Weigh House where heavy goods were weighed for customs duties. The honorary post of Weigher of Wools was often given to a Royal favourite. In Henry VIII’s reign it was held by Sir Henry Norris who was later executed accused of being one of Queen Anne Boleyn’s alleged lovers. Head east down Porters Lane to the Water Gate.
Water Gate
BAC
alk west down Blue Anchor lane to the original quayside W on Western Esplanade.
HAMTUM ST
T HE W
Always a prominent tenement building, in 1491 John Dawtry, after marrying Jane William the wealthy widow who owned Tudor House, extensively remodelled the property. He gained permission from the town to increase the frontage onto Bugle Street and also into Blue Anchor Lane. This extension can still be seen if you stand at the top of the lane. Dawtrey was later knighted by Henry VIII for services to the crown for the work he did on renovating Southampton’s defences and for overseeing the building of Henry’s flagship, the Mary Rose. Several of the internal original timbers in the building are of the same date as the Mary Rose. The main frontage of the building was remodelled when it was turned into a museum in 1912 but still manages to preserve the essence of the original house.
BACK OF
Tudor House
CASTLE WAY
FOR RES TV
I EW
ALBION PL.
Bull Hall The brick gate piers mark the back entrance to Bull Hall. Once a large medieval house, the property had originally been in the possession of a former mayor and merchant of the town, Henry Huttoft. His daughter Dorothy married the Florentine merchant and some time spy Antonio Guidotti. Unfortunately he involved his father-in-law in some risky business ventures and Huffoft was financially ruined in 1540 and this probably was when the property passed to the Wriothesley Family who were to become Earls of Southampton. The first Earl, Thomas Wriothesely [1505-50] worked for Thomas Cromwell and Cardinal Wolsey and obtained lands in Hampshire when the monasteries were dissolved, included Titchfield Abbey and Beaulieu Abbey. The second Earl [1545-81] was a staunch Catholic and involved in plots against Queen Elizabeth working in league with the Spanish. The third Earl [1573-1624] was a theatre-lover and Shakespeare’s patron. Condemned by Elizabeth for supporting the Earl of Essex’s rebellion his property of Bull Hall was seized by the Queen and he languished in the Tower but escaped execution being released when James I ascended the throne. Follow the lane down the slope, and at the end you will see the remains of a tower
St Barbara’s Tower There was no standing army in England at this time so towns like Southampton were responsible for their own defence. The town walls and towers were sub-divided and attributed to various wealthy towns people and craft guilds. This tower was looked after by the brewers and bakers, it was a two storey gun tower. St Barbara was a very popular saint before the Reformation and was said to have lived in a tower. As well as having an association as a patron of gunners she was also a help to those suffering from fevers and who were near to death. Head down the steps and cross Bugle Street to the Wool House
which was not free to pupils, was set up in Winkle St, adjacent to God’s House gate, following endowments from William Capon and John Capelyn. The boys were taught in a loft above the town stables, town boys paid 6d a quarter and others 16d and the schoolmaster received a salary of £10 which the town paid. One of the most prominent masters was Adrian a Saravia a Protestant refugee who had a house next to St Juliens. A number of Tudor scholars and diplomats were taught at the school including Sir Thomas Lake who became secretary to Sir Francis Walsingham, and was known by the name ‘Swiftsure’ and his brother Arthur Lake, Bishop of Wells. The school remained on this site for 142 years.
Only the west half of the gate survives. In the Tudor period this was the main gate by which visitors by sea came to Southampton. The gate had three sundials and a pair of carved lions stood guard on either side. During the visit of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V in 1521-2 the watergate was repointed and whitewashed, the painters had to hang from the battlements in cradles. It was also heavily fortified, when there were rumours of French attack an earthwork was built on the quay outside and bronze cannon were dug into the quay ready to fire at the attacking French ships. One such attack happened in 1542 when one of the town gunners, Harmon Smith, was killed when his gun exploded. Head across to Winkle Street
St Juliens known as The French Church St Julians chapel escaped the worst ravages of the Reformation as it played down its religious significance and focused instead on the support of the alms houses on the site. Almshouses were often built near to town gates so that travellers and pilgrims would be encouraged to give alms and the foundations were also a place where travellers could rest. The chapel was dedicated to St Julien the Hospitaler, patron saint of travellers who, it is said, built an inn and a hospital near a wide river to offer succour to both travellers and the poor. The whole site was and is still held by Queens College Oxford, but this did not prevent Elizabeth 1 offering the use of the Chapel to French and Walloon Protestant refugees who were fleeing from persecution and religious wars in the Low Countries and France during the second half of the sixteenth century. These merchant strangers did much to boost the flagging economy of Southampton during Elizabeth’s reign particularly by setting up weaving and cloth making in the town.
Edward VI school Was originally sited on the right of Winkle Street adjacent to Gods House gate. One of the consequences of the Reformation was that the usual place for boys to get an education, the monasteries, was no longer available. Instead there was the rise of the Grammar School, independent foundations usually endowed by wealthy local merchants and burgesses. These schools gained their licences from the crown, particularly Edward VI. Southampton’s Free School,
Outside of God’s House gate was the Saltmarsh, grazing grounds for horses and cattle, oyster beds and what is believed to the oldest bowling green in the world. Today bowls is considered a sedate past-time but in the sixteenth century it was thought to turn men into gamblers, distract apprentices from their work, and considered a great vice. However despite many tracts written against the playing of games and many fines imposed upon the players it continued to be very popular. Games did get heated however and in the same year Drake played bowls as he waited the arrival of the Spanish Armada, two former mayors of Southampton were fined for fisticuffs at the old bowling green. Follow the line of the wall to the Friary Gate
Friary Gate House The Franciscan Friary was transformed by Henry VII into a house of Observant Friars in 1499 but within a generation it was dissolved by Henry VIII; Friar Peacock did not help matters by preaching a sermon against Henry VIII in Winchester Cathedral, and he was dragged off to prison in 1534. The Friary was then given to the Augustine Order until it was finally suppressed in 1538 when John Peyll and five companions surrendered the premises. It included a quire, church, vestry, chapter house and cloister, frater, infirmary, tailor’s house, parlour, kitchen and washhouse and a library. The friary was briefly reinstated under Mary Tudor in 1557 but was closed when Elizabeth came to the throne in 1558. A stone wall used to line the High Street and behind it was the Friary cemetery. Many Tudor Sotonians were buried here, including a wealthy woman buried in a gold-embroidered skirt. Little remains of the original buildings, only the half round tower which used to be the Friary dovecote, the Friary gate which lead out onto the Shambles, the poorest distict of the town, and the Friary reredorter, or latrine which was built out over the town moat which provided a means of flushing the toilet. ross the car park, which was built on top of the cloisters, cross C the road and head north a few metres to the archaeological site on the left side of the High Street
Wine Vaults Home of the Fleming family and later to a number of the town’s mayors. In the Tudor period Thomas Thomas, a Welshman and follower of Henry Tudor, owned the house, but he was associated with Edmund Dudley, who was executed for treason in 1510 by Henry VIII, and the property was seized by the crown. Later it was the home of John Capelyn, a wealthy merchant and town mayor who helped found the grammar school in Winkle Street. Head north to the junction with Bernard Street and cross the road to Holy Rood Church
Holy Rood Church This church was the scene of a magnificent occasion in 1554 when Philip of Spain came to Southampton. He was on his way to marry Queen Mary Tudor, but he and his retinue, who came in 140 ships, stayed in Southampton for a few days first and worshipped in this church. If you walk down Holy Rood Place, to the north of the Church you can see the diaper brickwork of a Tudor mansion built on the site of the vicarage. The house was later home to Lawrence Prowse, Captain of the Angel, one of the Southampton ships that fought the Armada in 1588.
Please turn over
beginning of th e e Th Tudor walk
HANOV
You’re now half way on the Tudor Walk...
ER BUIL
BARGATE ST
DINGS
YORK W
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ALK
WES
LAN
E BRE
WH OU
Pass through the gate and turn right past West Gate hall
SE L
ANE
BRITA
IN ST
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S
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est Gate Hall originally The Fish Market W & Cloth Hall The town owned many public buildings and warehouses dedicated to particular trades. West Gate Hall used to stand in St Michael’s Square, in front of the church, it stood on stilts and its lower chamber was open to the elements. It was here that the town fish market was located. Above was the town cloth hall and merchants from all over England would come here to buy and sell cloth. Merchants from Kendal were so numerous that they even had a room named after them at the Dolphin Inn. The fish market building was moved in 1634 after complaints from the parishioners using St Michael’s church about the stench of fish. Head between the houses and the town wall along Cuckoo Lane
Cuckoo Lane In the Tudor period this area was used to build racks for stretching cloth after washing and dyeing. Dyeing was a very unpleasant activity and there were many complaints about it happening within the precincts of the town.
QUEE N’S T ER
WALK
T
The gate-tower and wall were built after the French sacked the town in 1338. Henry VIII paid for the defences to be upgraded and the gun ports in the front of the tower probably date from this time. Dwellers in west gate were told off in 1602 for “throwing downe ther water into the streets whereby they do decay the paving. And in tyme of winter in open weather do Cawsse the streets to be filthy and durty And in frost to be so glassy with Ice that no man is able to travel that way without danger”.
T
RACE
LOWER CANAL
VISE
STREE
The West Gate
ARD S
E ST
HIGH
On the quay was a large crane which used a treadmill to lift cargo out of the ships. The town had a paid official who looked after the crane and received a town livery. Such was the cranes’ importance that they appear on sixteenth century town maps. On the south side of the quay was the town’s main toilet. The town toilets all had descriptive names, such as the jakes, the little house of easement and the house of sighs. There were constant complaints about the stench and piling up of dung. Nearby was a salt-works where the polluted seawater was boiled down to make salt. The locals complained about the smoke from that as well.
BERN
ST
TGA T
The Galley Quay
West Quay
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St MICHAEL’S
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NE
Blue Anchor Lane
Head south towards the West Gate
ALLS
BL ANCH UE OR LA
In the Tudor period it was officially known as My Lord’s Lane after Lord Chief Justice Richard Lyster, who lived in Tudor House during the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI. The alternative name Piss Pot Alley was due to his servants emptying the chamber pots out of the overhanging upper storeys.
Southampton owed much of its wealth in the medieval and early Tudor period to the visits of Italian merchants. Ships from Genoa, Lucca, Ragusa, Florence and the galleys of Venice brought luxury goods into the town. They had their own quay just outside the Postern Gate where they would unload goods such as carpets, ivory, leopard skins and silks. The fleets came less often during the reign of Henry VIII and he visited the town to encourage them to maintain their trade with England. He spoilt things rather by asking if he could ‘borrow’ the guns from the fleet. One Italian admiral and his ship found himself stuck in Southampton for 18 months while the Italian ambassador tried to get the guns back. At the south end of the quay was a shipyard, most of the ships owned by Southampton merchants were of small tonnage but they still managed to travel to Newfoundland catching fish and bring it back to the fish market in St Michael’s square.
WEST ST
SIMNEL ST
Gods House Gate/old bowling green The Wool House Beaulieu Abbey used this building as their wool warehouse, and it is the only surviving example of the many warehouses that stood in this area in the Tudor period. Italian merchants bought up the English wool and it was brought here to be packed into wool-sacks ready for export. During the reign of Henry VII an official wool-packers guild was established here to undertake the packing of the pokes of wool. It was unusual in that all its members and its wardens were women, the first being a woman called Elizabeth Burgess. During the reign of Queen Elizabeth several of the town buildings were rented out to privateers who used them to store their prize goods which they looted from Spanish, Portuguese and French vessels under the reprisal system. The mayor of Southampton as Admiral of the Port also held a court which heard cases of disputed prize ships. The Privateering Earl of Cumberland leased the town warehouses for his successful voyages in the 1590s, his main captured cargoes being ginger and sugar. Amongst other famous privateers who used the port was Sir Walter Raleigh whose prize cargoes included elephant tusks. Cross French Street and as you cross if you look left you will see the stone remains of the Weigh House where heavy goods were weighed for customs duties. The honorary post of Weigher of Wools was often given to a Royal favourite. In Henry VIII’s reign it was held by Sir Henry Norris who was later executed accused of being one of Queen Anne Boleyn’s alleged lovers. Head east down Porters Lane to the Water Gate.
Water Gate
BAC
alk west down Blue Anchor lane to the original quayside W on Western Esplanade.
HAMTUM ST
T HE W
Always a prominent tenement building, in 1491 John Dawtry, after marrying Jane William the wealthy widow who owned Tudor House, extensively remodelled the property. He gained permission from the town to increase the frontage onto Bugle Street and also into Blue Anchor Lane. This extension can still be seen if you stand at the top of the lane. Dawtrey was later knighted by Henry VIII for services to the crown for the work he did on renovating Southampton’s defences and for overseeing the building of Henry’s flagship, the Mary Rose. Several of the internal original timbers in the building are of the same date as the Mary Rose. The main frontage of the building was remodelled when it was turned into a museum in 1912 but still manages to preserve the essence of the original house.
BACK OF
Tudor House
CASTLE WAY
FOR RES TV
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ALBION PL.
Bull Hall The brick gate piers mark the back entrance to Bull Hall. Once a large medieval house, the property had originally been in the possession of a former mayor and merchant of the town, Henry Huttoft. His daughter Dorothy married the Florentine merchant and some time spy Antonio Guidotti. Unfortunately he involved his father-in-law in some risky business ventures and Huffoft was financially ruined in 1540 and this probably was when the property passed to the Wriothesley Family who were to become Earls of Southampton. The first Earl, Thomas Wriothesely [1505-50] worked for Thomas Cromwell and Cardinal Wolsey and obtained lands in Hampshire when the monasteries were dissolved, included Titchfield Abbey and Beaulieu Abbey. The second Earl [1545-81] was a staunch Catholic and involved in plots against Queen Elizabeth working in league with the Spanish. The third Earl [1573-1624] was a theatre-lover and Shakespeare’s patron. Condemned by Elizabeth for supporting the Earl of Essex’s rebellion his property of Bull Hall was seized by the Queen and he languished in the Tower but escaped execution being released when James I ascended the throne. Follow the lane down the slope, and at the end you will see the remains of a tower
St Barbara’s Tower There was no standing army in England at this time so towns like Southampton were responsible for their own defence. The town walls and towers were sub-divided and attributed to various wealthy towns people and craft guilds. This tower was looked after by the brewers and bakers, it was a two storey gun tower. St Barbara was a very popular saint before the Reformation and was said to have lived in a tower. As well as having an association as a patron of gunners she was also a help to those suffering from fevers and who were near to death. Head down the steps and cross Bugle Street to the Wool House
which was not free to pupils, was set up in Winkle St, adjacent to God’s House gate, following endowments from William Capon and John Capelyn. The boys were taught in a loft above the town stables, town boys paid 6d a quarter and others 16d and the schoolmaster received a salary of £10 which the town paid. One of the most prominent masters was Adrian a Saravia a Protestant refugee who had a house next to St Juliens. A number of Tudor scholars and diplomats were taught at the school including Sir Thomas Lake who became secretary to Sir Francis Walsingham, and was known by the name ‘Swiftsure’ and his brother Arthur Lake, Bishop of Wells. The school remained on this site for 142 years.
Only the west half of the gate survives. In the Tudor period this was the main gate by which visitors by sea came to Southampton. The gate had three sundials and a pair of carved lions stood guard on either side. During the visit of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V in 1521-2 the watergate was repointed and whitewashed, the painters had to hang from the battlements in cradles. It was also heavily fortified, when there were rumours of French attack an earthwork was built on the quay outside and bronze cannon were dug into the quay ready to fire at the attacking French ships. One such attack happened in 1542 when one of the town gunners, Harmon Smith, was killed when his gun exploded. Head across to Winkle Street
St Juliens known as The French Church St Julians chapel escaped the worst ravages of the Reformation as it played down its religious significance and focused instead on the support of the alms houses on the site. Almshouses were often built near to town gates so that travellers and pilgrims would be encouraged to give alms and the foundations were also a place where travellers could rest. The chapel was dedicated to St Julien the Hospitaler, patron saint of travellers who, it is said, built an inn and a hospital near a wide river to offer succour to both travellers and the poor. The whole site was and is still held by Queens College Oxford, but this did not prevent Elizabeth 1 offering the use of the Chapel to French and Walloon Protestant refugees who were fleeing from persecution and religious wars in the Low Countries and France during the second half of the sixteenth century. These merchant strangers did much to boost the flagging economy of Southampton during Elizabeth’s reign particularly by setting up weaving and cloth making in the town.
Edward VI school Was originally sited on the right of Winkle Street adjacent to Gods House gate. One of the consequences of the Reformation was that the usual place for boys to get an education, the monasteries, was no longer available. Instead there was the rise of the Grammar School, independent foundations usually endowed by wealthy local merchants and burgesses. These schools gained their licences from the crown, particularly Edward VI. Southampton’s Free School,
Outside of God’s House gate was the Saltmarsh, grazing grounds for horses and cattle, oyster beds and what is believed to the oldest bowling green in the world. Today bowls is considered a sedate past-time but in the sixteenth century it was thought to turn men into gamblers, distract apprentices from their work, and considered a great vice. However despite many tracts written against the playing of games and many fines imposed upon the players it continued to be very popular. Games did get heated however and in the same year Drake played bowls as he waited the arrival of the Spanish Armada, two former mayors of Southampton were fined for fisticuffs at the old bowling green. Follow the line of the wall to the Friary Gate
Friary Gate House The Franciscan Friary was transformed by Henry VII into a house of Observant Friars in 1499 but within a generation it was dissolved by Henry VIII; Friar Peacock did not help matters by preaching a sermon against Henry VIII in Winchester Cathedral, and he was dragged off to prison in 1534. The Friary was then given to the Augustine Order until it was finally suppressed in 1538 when John Peyll and five companions surrendered the premises. It included a quire, church, vestry, chapter house and cloister, frater, infirmary, tailor’s house, parlour, kitchen and washhouse and a library. The friary was briefly reinstated under Mary Tudor in 1557 but was closed when Elizabeth came to the throne in 1558. A stone wall used to line the High Street and behind it was the Friary cemetery. Many Tudor Sotonians were buried here, including a wealthy woman buried in a gold-embroidered skirt. Little remains of the original buildings, only the half round tower which used to be the Friary dovecote, the Friary gate which lead out onto the Shambles, the poorest distict of the town, and the Friary reredorter, or latrine which was built out over the town moat which provided a means of flushing the toilet. ross the car park, which was built on top of the cloisters, cross C the road and head north a few metres to the archaeological site on the left side of the High Street
Wine Vaults Home of the Fleming family and later to a number of the town’s mayors. In the Tudor period Thomas Thomas, a Welshman and follower of Henry Tudor, owned the house, but he was associated with Edmund Dudley, who was executed for treason in 1510 by Henry VIII, and the property was seized by the crown. Later it was the home of John Capelyn, a wealthy merchant and town mayor who helped found the grammar school in Winkle Street. Head north to the junction with Bernard Street and cross the road to Holy Rood Church
Holy Rood Church This church was the scene of a magnificent occasion in 1554 when Philip of Spain came to Southampton. He was on his way to marry Queen Mary Tudor, but he and his retinue, who came in 140 ships, stayed in Southampton for a few days first and worshipped in this church. If you walk down Holy Rood Place, to the north of the Church you can see the diaper brickwork of a Tudor mansion built on the site of the vicarage. The house was later home to Lawrence Prowse, Captain of the Angel, one of the Southampton ships that fought the Armada in 1588.
Please turn over
beginning of th e e Th Tudor walk
HANOV
You’re now half way on the Tudor Walk...
ER BUIL
BARGATE ST
DINGS
YORK W
www.twitter.com/TudorRevels
ALK
WES
LAN
E BRE
WH OU
Pass through the gate and turn right past West Gate hall
SE L
ANE
BRITA
IN ST
ALL
S
POR TER
S LA
KLE
ST
KO
F TH
EW
NE
WIN
est Gate Hall originally The Fish Market W & Cloth Hall The town owned many public buildings and warehouses dedicated to particular trades. West Gate Hall used to stand in St Michael’s Square, in front of the church, it stood on stilts and its lower chamber was open to the elements. It was here that the town fish market was located. Above was the town cloth hall and merchants from all over England would come here to buy and sell cloth. Merchants from Kendal were so numerous that they even had a room named after them at the Dolphin Inn. The fish market building was moved in 1634 after complaints from the parishioners using St Michael’s church about the stench of fish. Head between the houses and the town wall along Cuckoo Lane
Cuckoo Lane In the Tudor period this area was used to build racks for stretching cloth after washing and dyeing. Dyeing was a very unpleasant activity and there were many complaints about it happening within the precincts of the town.
QUEE N’S T ER
WALK
T
The gate-tower and wall were built after the French sacked the town in 1338. Henry VIII paid for the defences to be upgraded and the gun ports in the front of the tower probably date from this time. Dwellers in west gate were told off in 1602 for “throwing downe ther water into the streets whereby they do decay the paving. And in tyme of winter in open weather do Cawsse the streets to be filthy and durty And in frost to be so glassy with Ice that no man is able to travel that way without danger”.
T
RACE
LOWER CANAL
VISE
STREE
The West Gate
ARD S
E ST
HIGH
On the quay was a large crane which used a treadmill to lift cargo out of the ships. The town had a paid official who looked after the crane and received a town livery. Such was the cranes’ importance that they appear on sixteenth century town maps. On the south side of the quay was the town’s main toilet. The town toilets all had descriptive names, such as the jakes, the little house of easement and the house of sighs. There were constant complaints about the stench and piling up of dung. Nearby was a salt-works where the polluted seawater was boiled down to make salt. The locals complained about the smoke from that as well.
BERN
ST
TGA T
The Galley Quay
West Quay
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St MICHAEL’S
www.tudorrevels.co.uk
NE
Blue Anchor Lane
Head south towards the West Gate
ALLS
BL ANCH UE OR LA
In the Tudor period it was officially known as My Lord’s Lane after Lord Chief Justice Richard Lyster, who lived in Tudor House during the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI. The alternative name Piss Pot Alley was due to his servants emptying the chamber pots out of the overhanging upper storeys.
Southampton owed much of its wealth in the medieval and early Tudor period to the visits of Italian merchants. Ships from Genoa, Lucca, Ragusa, Florence and the galleys of Venice brought luxury goods into the town. They had their own quay just outside the Postern Gate where they would unload goods such as carpets, ivory, leopard skins and silks. The fleets came less often during the reign of Henry VIII and he visited the town to encourage them to maintain their trade with England. He spoilt things rather by asking if he could ‘borrow’ the guns from the fleet. One Italian admiral and his ship found himself stuck in Southampton for 18 months while the Italian ambassador tried to get the guns back. At the south end of the quay was a shipyard, most of the ships owned by Southampton merchants were of small tonnage but they still managed to travel to Newfoundland catching fish and bring it back to the fish market in St Michael’s square.
WEST ST
SIMNEL ST
Gods House Gate/old bowling green The Wool House Beaulieu Abbey used this building as their wool warehouse, and it is the only surviving example of the many warehouses that stood in this area in the Tudor period. Italian merchants bought up the English wool and it was brought here to be packed into wool-sacks ready for export. During the reign of Henry VII an official wool-packers guild was established here to undertake the packing of the pokes of wool. It was unusual in that all its members and its wardens were women, the first being a woman called Elizabeth Burgess. During the reign of Queen Elizabeth several of the town buildings were rented out to privateers who used them to store their prize goods which they looted from Spanish, Portuguese and French vessels under the reprisal system. The mayor of Southampton as Admiral of the Port also held a court which heard cases of disputed prize ships. The Privateering Earl of Cumberland leased the town warehouses for his successful voyages in the 1590s, his main captured cargoes being ginger and sugar. Amongst other famous privateers who used the port was Sir Walter Raleigh whose prize cargoes included elephant tusks. Cross French Street and as you cross if you look left you will see the stone remains of the Weigh House where heavy goods were weighed for customs duties. The honorary post of Weigher of Wools was often given to a Royal favourite. In Henry VIII’s reign it was held by Sir Henry Norris who was later executed accused of being one of Queen Anne Boleyn’s alleged lovers. Head east down Porters Lane to the Water Gate.
Water Gate
BAC
alk west down Blue Anchor lane to the original quayside W on Western Esplanade.
HAMTUM ST
T HE W
Always a prominent tenement building, in 1491 John Dawtry, after marrying Jane William the wealthy widow who owned Tudor House, extensively remodelled the property. He gained permission from the town to increase the frontage onto Bugle Street and also into Blue Anchor Lane. This extension can still be seen if you stand at the top of the lane. Dawtrey was later knighted by Henry VIII for services to the crown for the work he did on renovating Southampton’s defences and for overseeing the building of Henry’s flagship, the Mary Rose. Several of the internal original timbers in the building are of the same date as the Mary Rose. The main frontage of the building was remodelled when it was turned into a museum in 1912 but still manages to preserve the essence of the original house.
BACK OF
Tudor House
CASTLE WAY
FOR RES TV
I EW
ALBION PL.
Bull Hall The brick gate piers mark the back entrance to Bull Hall. Once a large medieval house, the property had originally been in the possession of a former mayor and merchant of the town, Henry Huttoft. His daughter Dorothy married the Florentine merchant and some time spy Antonio Guidotti. Unfortunately he involved his father-in-law in some risky business ventures and Huffoft was financially ruined in 1540 and this probably was when the property passed to the Wriothesley Family who were to become Earls of Southampton. The first Earl, Thomas Wriothesely [1505-50] worked for Thomas Cromwell and Cardinal Wolsey and obtained lands in Hampshire when the monasteries were dissolved, included Titchfield Abbey and Beaulieu Abbey. The second Earl [1545-81] was a staunch Catholic and involved in plots against Queen Elizabeth working in league with the Spanish. The third Earl [1573-1624] was a theatre-lover and Shakespeare’s patron. Condemned by Elizabeth for supporting the Earl of Essex’s rebellion his property of Bull Hall was seized by the Queen and he languished in the Tower but escaped execution being released when James I ascended the throne. Follow the lane down the slope, and at the end you will see the remains of a tower
St Barbara’s Tower There was no standing army in England at this time so towns like Southampton were responsible for their own defence. The town walls and towers were sub-divided and attributed to various wealthy towns people and craft guilds. This tower was looked after by the brewers and bakers, it was a two storey gun tower. St Barbara was a very popular saint before the Reformation and was said to have lived in a tower. As well as having an association as a patron of gunners she was also a help to those suffering from fevers and who were near to death. Head down the steps and cross Bugle Street to the Wool House
which was not free to pupils, was set up in Winkle St, adjacent to God’s House gate, following endowments from William Capon and John Capelyn. The boys were taught in a loft above the town stables, town boys paid 6d a quarter and others 16d and the schoolmaster received a salary of £10 which the town paid. One of the most prominent masters was Adrian a Saravia a Protestant refugee who had a house next to St Juliens. A number of Tudor scholars and diplomats were taught at the school including Sir Thomas Lake who became secretary to Sir Francis Walsingham, and was known by the name ‘Swiftsure’ and his brother Arthur Lake, Bishop of Wells. The school remained on this site for 142 years.
Only the west half of the gate survives. In the Tudor period this was the main gate by which visitors by sea came to Southampton. The gate had three sundials and a pair of carved lions stood guard on either side. During the visit of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V in 1521-2 the watergate was repointed and whitewashed, the painters had to hang from the battlements in cradles. It was also heavily fortified, when there were rumours of French attack an earthwork was built on the quay outside and bronze cannon were dug into the quay ready to fire at the attacking French ships. One such attack happened in 1542 when one of the town gunners, Harmon Smith, was killed when his gun exploded. Head across to Winkle Street
St Juliens known as The French Church St Julians chapel escaped the worst ravages of the Reformation as it played down its religious significance and focused instead on the support of the alms houses on the site. Almshouses were often built near to town gates so that travellers and pilgrims would be encouraged to give alms and the foundations were also a place where travellers could rest. The chapel was dedicated to St Julien the Hospitaler, patron saint of travellers who, it is said, built an inn and a hospital near a wide river to offer succour to both travellers and the poor. The whole site was and is still held by Queens College Oxford, but this did not prevent Elizabeth 1 offering the use of the Chapel to French and Walloon Protestant refugees who were fleeing from persecution and religious wars in the Low Countries and France during the second half of the sixteenth century. These merchant strangers did much to boost the flagging economy of Southampton during Elizabeth’s reign particularly by setting up weaving and cloth making in the town.
Edward VI school Was originally sited on the right of Winkle Street adjacent to Gods House gate. One of the consequences of the Reformation was that the usual place for boys to get an education, the monasteries, was no longer available. Instead there was the rise of the Grammar School, independent foundations usually endowed by wealthy local merchants and burgesses. These schools gained their licences from the crown, particularly Edward VI. Southampton’s Free School,
Outside of God’s House gate was the Saltmarsh, grazing grounds for horses and cattle, oyster beds and what is believed to the oldest bowling green in the world. Today bowls is considered a sedate past-time but in the sixteenth century it was thought to turn men into gamblers, distract apprentices from their work, and considered a great vice. However despite many tracts written against the playing of games and many fines imposed upon the players it continued to be very popular. Games did get heated however and in the same year Drake played bowls as he waited the arrival of the Spanish Armada, two former mayors of Southampton were fined for fisticuffs at the old bowling green. Follow the line of the wall to the Friary Gate
Friary Gate House The Franciscan Friary was transformed by Henry VII into a house of Observant Friars in 1499 but within a generation it was dissolved by Henry VIII; Friar Peacock did not help matters by preaching a sermon against Henry VIII in Winchester Cathedral, and he was dragged off to prison in 1534. The Friary was then given to the Augustine Order until it was finally suppressed in 1538 when John Peyll and five companions surrendered the premises. It included a quire, church, vestry, chapter house and cloister, frater, infirmary, tailor’s house, parlour, kitchen and washhouse and a library. The friary was briefly reinstated under Mary Tudor in 1557 but was closed when Elizabeth came to the throne in 1558. A stone wall used to line the High Street and behind it was the Friary cemetery. Many Tudor Sotonians were buried here, including a wealthy woman buried in a gold-embroidered skirt. Little remains of the original buildings, only the half round tower which used to be the Friary dovecote, the Friary gate which lead out onto the Shambles, the poorest distict of the town, and the Friary reredorter, or latrine which was built out over the town moat which provided a means of flushing the toilet. ross the car park, which was built on top of the cloisters, cross C the road and head north a few metres to the archaeological site on the left side of the High Street
Wine Vaults Home of the Fleming family and later to a number of the town’s mayors. In the Tudor period Thomas Thomas, a Welshman and follower of Henry Tudor, owned the house, but he was associated with Edmund Dudley, who was executed for treason in 1510 by Henry VIII, and the property was seized by the crown. Later it was the home of John Capelyn, a wealthy merchant and town mayor who helped found the grammar school in Winkle Street. Head north to the junction with Bernard Street and cross the road to Holy Rood Church
Holy Rood Church This church was the scene of a magnificent occasion in 1554 when Philip of Spain came to Southampton. He was on his way to marry Queen Mary Tudor, but he and his retinue, who came in 140 ships, stayed in Southampton for a few days first and worshipped in this church. If you walk down Holy Rood Place, to the north of the Church you can see the diaper brickwork of a Tudor mansion built on the site of the vicarage. The house was later home to Lawrence Prowse, Captain of the Angel, one of the Southampton ships that fought the Armada in 1588.
Please turn over
beginning of th e e Th Tudor walk
HANOV
You’re now half way on the Tudor Walk...
ER BUIL
BARGATE ST
DINGS
YORK W
www.twitter.com/TudorRevels
ALK
WES
LAN
E BRE
WH OU
Pass through the gate and turn right past West Gate hall
SE L
ANE
BRITA
IN ST
ALL
S
POR TER
S LA
KLE
ST
KO
F TH
EW
NE
WIN
est Gate Hall originally The Fish Market W & Cloth Hall The town owned many public buildings and warehouses dedicated to particular trades. West Gate Hall used to stand in St Michael’s Square, in front of the church, it stood on stilts and its lower chamber was open to the elements. It was here that the town fish market was located. Above was the town cloth hall and merchants from all over England would come here to buy and sell cloth. Merchants from Kendal were so numerous that they even had a room named after them at the Dolphin Inn. The fish market building was moved in 1634 after complaints from the parishioners using St Michael’s church about the stench of fish. Head between the houses and the town wall along Cuckoo Lane
Cuckoo Lane In the Tudor period this area was used to build racks for stretching cloth after washing and dyeing. Dyeing was a very unpleasant activity and there were many complaints about it happening within the precincts of the town.
QUEE N’S T ER
WALK
T
The gate-tower and wall were built after the French sacked the town in 1338. Henry VIII paid for the defences to be upgraded and the gun ports in the front of the tower probably date from this time. Dwellers in west gate were told off in 1602 for “throwing downe ther water into the streets whereby they do decay the paving. And in tyme of winter in open weather do Cawsse the streets to be filthy and durty And in frost to be so glassy with Ice that no man is able to travel that way without danger”.
T
RACE
LOWER CANAL
VISE
STREE
The West Gate
ARD S
E ST
HIGH
On the quay was a large crane which used a treadmill to lift cargo out of the ships. The town had a paid official who looked after the crane and received a town livery. Such was the cranes’ importance that they appear on sixteenth century town maps. On the south side of the quay was the town’s main toilet. The town toilets all had descriptive names, such as the jakes, the little house of easement and the house of sighs. There were constant complaints about the stench and piling up of dung. Nearby was a salt-works where the polluted seawater was boiled down to make salt. The locals complained about the smoke from that as well.
BERN
ST
TGA T
The Galley Quay
West Quay
www.facebook.com/TudorRevelsSouthampton
St MICHAEL’S
www.tudorrevels.co.uk
NE
Blue Anchor Lane
Head south towards the West Gate
ALLS
BL ANCH UE OR LA
In the Tudor period it was officially known as My Lord’s Lane after Lord Chief Justice Richard Lyster, who lived in Tudor House during the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI. The alternative name Piss Pot Alley was due to his servants emptying the chamber pots out of the overhanging upper storeys.
Southampton owed much of its wealth in the medieval and early Tudor period to the visits of Italian merchants. Ships from Genoa, Lucca, Ragusa, Florence and the galleys of Venice brought luxury goods into the town. They had their own quay just outside the Postern Gate where they would unload goods such as carpets, ivory, leopard skins and silks. The fleets came less often during the reign of Henry VIII and he visited the town to encourage them to maintain their trade with England. He spoilt things rather by asking if he could ‘borrow’ the guns from the fleet. One Italian admiral and his ship found himself stuck in Southampton for 18 months while the Italian ambassador tried to get the guns back. At the south end of the quay was a shipyard, most of the ships owned by Southampton merchants were of small tonnage but they still managed to travel to Newfoundland catching fish and bring it back to the fish market in St Michael’s square.
WEST ST
SIMNEL ST
Gods House Gate/old bowling green The Wool House Beaulieu Abbey used this building as their wool warehouse, and it is the only surviving example of the many warehouses that stood in this area in the Tudor period. Italian merchants bought up the English wool and it was brought here to be packed into wool-sacks ready for export. During the reign of Henry VII an official wool-packers guild was established here to undertake the packing of the pokes of wool. It was unusual in that all its members and its wardens were women, the first being a woman called Elizabeth Burgess. During the reign of Queen Elizabeth several of the town buildings were rented out to privateers who used them to store their prize goods which they looted from Spanish, Portuguese and French vessels under the reprisal system. The mayor of Southampton as Admiral of the Port also held a court which heard cases of disputed prize ships. The Privateering Earl of Cumberland leased the town warehouses for his successful voyages in the 1590s, his main captured cargoes being ginger and sugar. Amongst other famous privateers who used the port was Sir Walter Raleigh whose prize cargoes included elephant tusks. Cross French Street and as you cross if you look left you will see the stone remains of the Weigh House where heavy goods were weighed for customs duties. The honorary post of Weigher of Wools was often given to a Royal favourite. In Henry VIII’s reign it was held by Sir Henry Norris who was later executed accused of being one of Queen Anne Boleyn’s alleged lovers. Head east down Porters Lane to the Water Gate.
Water Gate
BAC
alk west down Blue Anchor lane to the original quayside W on Western Esplanade.
HAMTUM ST
T HE W
Always a prominent tenement building, in 1491 John Dawtry, after marrying Jane William the wealthy widow who owned Tudor House, extensively remodelled the property. He gained permission from the town to increase the frontage onto Bugle Street and also into Blue Anchor Lane. This extension can still be seen if you stand at the top of the lane. Dawtrey was later knighted by Henry VIII for services to the crown for the work he did on renovating Southampton’s defences and for overseeing the building of Henry’s flagship, the Mary Rose. Several of the internal original timbers in the building are of the same date as the Mary Rose. The main frontage of the building was remodelled when it was turned into a museum in 1912 but still manages to preserve the essence of the original house.
BACK OF
Tudor House
CASTLE WAY
FOR RES TV
I EW
ALBION PL.
Bull Hall The brick gate piers mark the back entrance to Bull Hall. Once a large medieval house, the property had originally been in the possession of a former mayor and merchant of the town, Henry Huttoft. His daughter Dorothy married the Florentine merchant and some time spy Antonio Guidotti. Unfortunately he involved his father-in-law in some risky business ventures and Huffoft was financially ruined in 1540 and this probably was when the property passed to the Wriothesley Family who were to become Earls of Southampton. The first Earl, Thomas Wriothesely [1505-50] worked for Thomas Cromwell and Cardinal Wolsey and obtained lands in Hampshire when the monasteries were dissolved, included Titchfield Abbey and Beaulieu Abbey. The second Earl [1545-81] was a staunch Catholic and involved in plots against Queen Elizabeth working in league with the Spanish. The third Earl [1573-1624] was a theatre-lover and Shakespeare’s patron. Condemned by Elizabeth for supporting the Earl of Essex’s rebellion his property of Bull Hall was seized by the Queen and he languished in the Tower but escaped execution being released when James I ascended the throne. Follow the lane down the slope, and at the end you will see the remains of a tower
St Barbara’s Tower There was no standing army in England at this time so towns like Southampton were responsible for their own defence. The town walls and towers were sub-divided and attributed to various wealthy towns people and craft guilds. This tower was looked after by the brewers and bakers, it was a two storey gun tower. St Barbara was a very popular saint before the Reformation and was said to have lived in a tower. As well as having an association as a patron of gunners she was also a help to those suffering from fevers and who were near to death. Head down the steps and cross Bugle Street to the Wool House
which was not free to pupils, was set up in Winkle St, adjacent to God’s House gate, following endowments from William Capon and John Capelyn. The boys were taught in a loft above the town stables, town boys paid 6d a quarter and others 16d and the schoolmaster received a salary of £10 which the town paid. One of the most prominent masters was Adrian a Saravia a Protestant refugee who had a house next to St Juliens. A number of Tudor scholars and diplomats were taught at the school including Sir Thomas Lake who became secretary to Sir Francis Walsingham, and was known by the name ‘Swiftsure’ and his brother Arthur Lake, Bishop of Wells. The school remained on this site for 142 years.
Only the west half of the gate survives. In the Tudor period this was the main gate by which visitors by sea came to Southampton. The gate had three sundials and a pair of carved lions stood guard on either side. During the visit of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V in 1521-2 the watergate was repointed and whitewashed, the painters had to hang from the battlements in cradles. It was also heavily fortified, when there were rumours of French attack an earthwork was built on the quay outside and bronze cannon were dug into the quay ready to fire at the attacking French ships. One such attack happened in 1542 when one of the town gunners, Harmon Smith, was killed when his gun exploded. Head across to Winkle Street
St Juliens known as The French Church St Julians chapel escaped the worst ravages of the Reformation as it played down its religious significance and focused instead on the support of the alms houses on the site. Almshouses were often built near to town gates so that travellers and pilgrims would be encouraged to give alms and the foundations were also a place where travellers could rest. The chapel was dedicated to St Julien the Hospitaler, patron saint of travellers who, it is said, built an inn and a hospital near a wide river to offer succour to both travellers and the poor. The whole site was and is still held by Queens College Oxford, but this did not prevent Elizabeth 1 offering the use of the Chapel to French and Walloon Protestant refugees who were fleeing from persecution and religious wars in the Low Countries and France during the second half of the sixteenth century. These merchant strangers did much to boost the flagging economy of Southampton during Elizabeth’s reign particularly by setting up weaving and cloth making in the town.
Edward VI school Was originally sited on the right of Winkle Street adjacent to Gods House gate. One of the consequences of the Reformation was that the usual place for boys to get an education, the monasteries, was no longer available. Instead there was the rise of the Grammar School, independent foundations usually endowed by wealthy local merchants and burgesses. These schools gained their licences from the crown, particularly Edward VI. Southampton’s Free School,
Outside of God’s House gate was the Saltmarsh, grazing grounds for horses and cattle, oyster beds and what is believed to the oldest bowling green in the world. Today bowls is considered a sedate past-time but in the sixteenth century it was thought to turn men into gamblers, distract apprentices from their work, and considered a great vice. However despite many tracts written against the playing of games and many fines imposed upon the players it continued to be very popular. Games did get heated however and in the same year Drake played bowls as he waited the arrival of the Spanish Armada, two former mayors of Southampton were fined for fisticuffs at the old bowling green. Follow the line of the wall to the Friary Gate
Friary Gate House The Franciscan Friary was transformed by Henry VII into a house of Observant Friars in 1499 but within a generation it was dissolved by Henry VIII; Friar Peacock did not help matters by preaching a sermon against Henry VIII in Winchester Cathedral, and he was dragged off to prison in 1534. The Friary was then given to the Augustine Order until it was finally suppressed in 1538 when John Peyll and five companions surrendered the premises. It included a quire, church, vestry, chapter house and cloister, frater, infirmary, tailor’s house, parlour, kitchen and washhouse and a library. The friary was briefly reinstated under Mary Tudor in 1557 but was closed when Elizabeth came to the throne in 1558. A stone wall used to line the High Street and behind it was the Friary cemetery. Many Tudor Sotonians were buried here, including a wealthy woman buried in a gold-embroidered skirt. Little remains of the original buildings, only the half round tower which used to be the Friary dovecote, the Friary gate which lead out onto the Shambles, the poorest distict of the town, and the Friary reredorter, or latrine which was built out over the town moat which provided a means of flushing the toilet. ross the car park, which was built on top of the cloisters, cross C the road and head north a few metres to the archaeological site on the left side of the High Street
Wine Vaults Home of the Fleming family and later to a number of the town’s mayors. In the Tudor period Thomas Thomas, a Welshman and follower of Henry Tudor, owned the house, but he was associated with Edmund Dudley, who was executed for treason in 1510 by Henry VIII, and the property was seized by the crown. Later it was the home of John Capelyn, a wealthy merchant and town mayor who helped found the grammar school in Winkle Street. Head north to the junction with Bernard Street and cross the road to Holy Rood Church
Holy Rood Church This church was the scene of a magnificent occasion in 1554 when Philip of Spain came to Southampton. He was on his way to marry Queen Mary Tudor, but he and his retinue, who came in 140 ships, stayed in Southampton for a few days first and worshipped in this church. If you walk down Holy Rood Place, to the north of the Church you can see the diaper brickwork of a Tudor mansion built on the site of the vicarage. The house was later home to Lawrence Prowse, Captain of the Angel, one of the Southampton ships that fought the Armada in 1588.
Please turn over
Publication designed by www.themarketing-collective.com
www.tudorrevels.co.uk
The Tudor Revels was a two year project supported by a wide range of community, heritage and amenity organisations and funded by a grant from the Heritage Lottery. Its aim was to raise the profile of Southampton’s historic records and the way they can be used to interpret and bring to life the heritage of the town. The Revels have included a wide variety of public events including Michaelmas Fairs and dramatic performances, workshops in music, costume and dance, a whole host of talks and visits as well as offering training to heritage volunteers and budding researchers. It has also left a legacy via The People Project database, this walk leaflet and a book on Tudor Southampton which we hope will inspire future generations to become involved in local history and support the preservation of Southampton’s heritage.
Gods House Tower, Winkle Street
Southampton Museums
Friends & Supporters If you look North you will see the Bargate, which was the north gate and entrance to the Tudor town as well as the guildhall where the town court was presided over by the mayor. ross the High Street, turn left onto West St, then cross Castle C Way. On the other side you will see Simnel Street, go down the street till you come to a garden on your right
Tudor House Museum
Medieval Merchants House Museum, 58 French Street
City of Southampton Society Diaper Heritage Association Friends of St James Park Friends of Southampton Museums, Archives & Galleries Friends of Southampton Old Cemetary Friends of Town Quay Park Gosport Living History Group Hamble Valley Heritage Guides Old Town Residents Association Saint Michaels Church Sarah Siddons Fan Club Theatre Company Southampton City Archives Southampton City Museums & Archaeology Unit Southampton City Museums Archaeological Society Southampton Records Series Southampton Tourist Guides Association University of Southampton Willis Fleming Historical Trust In the sixteenth century the Dolphin was the largest inn in the town where many notable visitors would have stayed, or dined, as well as visiting merchants and traders. It had rooms with names such as the Dragon Room and the Kendalmens Room named for the visiting Kendal cloth merchants. Rooms were furnished with Turkish carpets, which would have been hung on the walls, and Venetian glass. The Kendalmens chamber had two standing beds, two truckle beds, three featherbeds and bolsters, two coverlets, a square table, bench, and painted cloth wall hangings. The courtyard would have had external galleries, providing a natural performing space for travelling theatre companies. All the famous theatre companies visited Southampton including Leicester’s Men, Lord Strange’s company and the Lord Chamberlain’s men.
Open out to start the walk
Proposed Heritage Centre Gods House gate was one of the main gateways of the walled town and took its name from the adjacent property of God’s House or the Maison Dieu. Leading out on to the marsh, pasture lands, orchards and the bowling green, the gate included the substantial L-shaped tower used to store the town guns. Gods House was also the site of one of the earliest documented town mills in the country. During the Tudor period the mill was owned by the prominent Capelyn family. By 1600 Denis Rowse had taken over the rebuilt mill. His servant John Martin was presented at Court Leet for putting into a sack of Mr Toldervay’s wheat ‘a pottle or more of the Sande of the sea, and grounded it all together with the wheat to the great hurt and damage of the people that showld eat the same and great unwholesomnes of the bread for mans boddie.’ A note in the margin says that the culprit was punished in the pillory.
The Dolphin
This prominent corner tenement was one of the most important residences in Tudor Southampton and remained in continuous occupation until it eventually became a museum in 1912. All its former residents left their mark on the building but at its heart is the wood panelled banqueting hall. When John Dawtrey extended the property in the late fifteenth century he incorporated two former cottages at the rear of the main building. The house leads out into an impressive Tudor garden restored and landscaped by the garden historian Dr Sylvia Landsberg. It contains more than 100 flowers and herbs common in Tudor times, used for both culinary and medicinal purposes.
This museum lovingly recreates life in a medieval merchants house at a time that the king of England remarked ‘Southampton abounds in merchants, sailors, mariners who flock from distant ports to that town with an immense quantity of cargoes, galleys, and ships plying with merchandise to the port there’ Henry VI 1447. The house would still be familiar in its layout and furniture to the early Tudor inhabitants of the town. It was stone built but with timber in the interior and the front above ground level. At the front was a shop with shutters, which would be open to indicate the owner was licensed to trade. Below was a stone barrel shaped vault for storing goods and above the front and back of the central hall there are three chambers. It would not have been classed as the grandest of houses but still a substantial residence and at one point was owned by Thomas Fashin who served as town steward during Elizabeth I’s reign.
Quarter Jacks, Bevis & Ascupart On the outside of Holy Rood church the church clock houses quarter jacks that date from the sixteenth century. These colourful figures strike the quarter hours and their costumes and faces suggest that they might be images of Sir Bevis of Hampton and his squire, the giant Ascupart. The legend of Sir Bevis dates back to the early middle ages and was a well read and well studied text up until the eighteenth century. In the late fifteenth century when towns in England were looking to assert their independence from the crown, they linked their history to a noble founder. This might be a saint or a Saxon king or a more legendary character. Southampton of course had an ideal candidate who already bore the towns name. In the Tudor period great wooden paintings of Bevis and Ascupart hung on the outside of the Bargate to overawe or welcome visitors arriving in the town.
About the Tudor Revels
Thanks also to: Aspace Bitterne Local History Society Cantores Michaelis Eastleigh Borough Council The Historical Association The People Project Researchers Group Southampton City Council The University of the Third Age Special Thanks to the Tudor Revels Working Group & The Heritage Lottery Fund
Continuing the walk...
The People Project
Roger Machados House On the north side of Simnel Street is a garden area where archaeologists uncovered the cellars of a large house. The rubbish pits contained imported pottery and Italian glass. Documents showed that Roger Machado, a herald to Edward IV, Richard III and Henry VII, lived here. He was from Portugal and his knowledge of English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Latin gave him a career as a diplomat and ambassador to the early Tudor kings. Turn left into Bugle Street and make your way back to St Michaels Square
St Michaels Church St Michaels church has an ancient history being the oldest building within the town walls, dating from 1070. During the Tudor period it found itself in the middle of the great cultural revolution that was the Reformation. It has endured many changes not only religious, and has altered its size and shape to accommodate both growing and reducing congregations. Its most prominent Tudor memorial is the stone carved tomb of Sir Richard Lyster, Lord Chief Justice of England, and former resident of Tudor House. Lyster trained as a lawyer during the reign of Henry VII, served Henry VIII and Edward VI as the country’s chief justice, died during the reign of Mary and saw his monument finally in place at the start of Elizabeth’s reign. He had taken part in the trials of Bishop Fisher and Sir Thomas More, attended the coronation of Anne Boleyn and managed to survive the dangers of the Tudor court. He married the widow of Sir John Dawtrey and by that means gained control of Tudor House where he died in 1554.
of the wal k End
To find out more about Tudor Southampton and all the people who lived in the town visit www.tudorrevels.co.uk you will find a map of the town – hover over the red flags for some historical snippets – a growing number of articles about town life and if you click on the tab called ‘records’ you will find a database of all known people who lived in the town. A group of around 20 volunteer researchers and editors have been working their way through the towns documents held in the Southampton archives and extracting information to create as in depth a picture as possible about the Tudor townsfolk. As a port the town has immigrants from across England but also there are French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, German, Saracens, Irish, Portuguese all living together within the walls. We can place many of them within specific parishes and trades. By constructing a time line of entries we can estimate lifespans and surviving wills have helped connect members of the same families.
Historical Survival
a walking tour around tudor Southampton
St Michael’s Church is the only church used in the Tudor period that has survived intact. All Saints and Holy Rood were bombed during the second world war and St Lawrence and St. Johns were demolished. The mother church of St. Mary was also demolished during the sixteenth century although subsequently rebuilt, only to also be bombed and rebuilt again after the second world war. Volunteers from the Friends of St. Michael enable the church to be open to visitors outside of the usual services and the church has much of interest inside including a 12th century medieval font, medieval brass eagle lecterns and stained glass windows including one depicting all five of the medieval churches within the walls.
The database is already being used by historians, genealogists, family historians and is contributing to the wider study of Southampton’s history.
e Peopl Histo Names ry s d Recor Family
This circular tour will take approximately 1 ½ hours start from St Michaels Square, Bugle Street.
Publication designed by www.themarketing-collective.com
www.tudorrevels.co.uk
The Tudor Revels was a two year project supported by a wide range of community, heritage and amenity organisations and funded by a grant from the Heritage Lottery. Its aim was to raise the profile of Southampton’s historic records and the way they can be used to interpret and bring to life the heritage of the town. The Revels have included a wide variety of public events including Michaelmas Fairs and dramatic performances, workshops in music, costume and dance, a whole host of talks and visits as well as offering training to heritage volunteers and budding researchers. It has also left a legacy via The People Project database, this walk leaflet and a book on Tudor Southampton which we hope will inspire future generations to become involved in local history and support the preservation of Southampton’s heritage.
Gods House Tower, Winkle Street
Southampton Museums
Friends & Supporters If you look North you will see the Bargate, which was the north gate and entrance to the Tudor town as well as the guildhall where the town court was presided over by the mayor. ross the High Street, turn left onto West St, then cross Castle C Way. On the other side you will see Simnel Street, go down the street till you come to a garden on your right
Tudor House Museum
Medieval Merchants House Museum, 58 French Street
City of Southampton Society Diaper Heritage Association Friends of St James Park Friends of Southampton Museums, Archives & Galleries Friends of Southampton Old Cemetary Friends of Town Quay Park Gosport Living History Group Hamble Valley Heritage Guides Old Town Residents Association Saint Michaels Church Sarah Siddons Fan Club Theatre Company Southampton City Archives Southampton City Museums & Archaeology Unit Southampton City Museums Archaeological Society Southampton Records Series Southampton Tourist Guides Association University of Southampton Willis Fleming Historical Trust In the sixteenth century the Dolphin was the largest inn in the town where many notable visitors would have stayed, or dined, as well as visiting merchants and traders. It had rooms with names such as the Dragon Room and the Kendalmens Room named for the visiting Kendal cloth merchants. Rooms were furnished with Turkish carpets, which would have been hung on the walls, and Venetian glass. The Kendalmens chamber had two standing beds, two truckle beds, three featherbeds and bolsters, two coverlets, a square table, bench, and painted cloth wall hangings. The courtyard would have had external galleries, providing a natural performing space for travelling theatre companies. All the famous theatre companies visited Southampton including Leicester’s Men, Lord Strange’s company and the Lord Chamberlain’s men.
Open out to start the walk
Proposed Heritage Centre Gods House gate was one of the main gateways of the walled town and took its name from the adjacent property of God’s House or the Maison Dieu. Leading out on to the marsh, pasture lands, orchards and the bowling green, the gate included the substantial L-shaped tower used to store the town guns. Gods House was also the site of one of the earliest documented town mills in the country. During the Tudor period the mill was owned by the prominent Capelyn family. By 1600 Denis Rowse had taken over the rebuilt mill. His servant John Martin was presented at Court Leet for putting into a sack of Mr Toldervay’s wheat ‘a pottle or more of the Sande of the sea, and grounded it all together with the wheat to the great hurt and damage of the people that showld eat the same and great unwholesomnes of the bread for mans boddie.’ A note in the margin says that the culprit was punished in the pillory.
The Dolphin
This prominent corner tenement was one of the most important residences in Tudor Southampton and remained in continuous occupation until it eventually became a museum in 1912. All its former residents left their mark on the building but at its heart is the wood panelled banqueting hall. When John Dawtrey extended the property in the late fifteenth century he incorporated two former cottages at the rear of the main building. The house leads out into an impressive Tudor garden restored and landscaped by the garden historian Dr Sylvia Landsberg. It contains more than 100 flowers and herbs common in Tudor times, used for both culinary and medicinal purposes.
This museum lovingly recreates life in a medieval merchants house at a time that the king of England remarked ‘Southampton abounds in merchants, sailors, mariners who flock from distant ports to that town with an immense quantity of cargoes, galleys, and ships plying with merchandise to the port there’ Henry VI 1447. The house would still be familiar in its layout and furniture to the early Tudor inhabitants of the town. It was stone built but with timber in the interior and the front above ground level. At the front was a shop with shutters, which would be open to indicate the owner was licensed to trade. Below was a stone barrel shaped vault for storing goods and above the front and back of the central hall there are three chambers. It would not have been classed as the grandest of houses but still a substantial residence and at one point was owned by Thomas Fashin who served as town steward during Elizabeth I’s reign.
Quarter Jacks, Bevis & Ascupart On the outside of Holy Rood church the church clock houses quarter jacks that date from the sixteenth century. These colourful figures strike the quarter hours and their costumes and faces suggest that they might be images of Sir Bevis of Hampton and his squire, the giant Ascupart. The legend of Sir Bevis dates back to the early middle ages and was a well read and well studied text up until the eighteenth century. In the late fifteenth century when towns in England were looking to assert their independence from the crown, they linked their history to a noble founder. This might be a saint or a Saxon king or a more legendary character. Southampton of course had an ideal candidate who already bore the towns name. In the Tudor period great wooden paintings of Bevis and Ascupart hung on the outside of the Bargate to overawe or welcome visitors arriving in the town.
About the Tudor Revels
Thanks also to: Aspace Bitterne Local History Society Cantores Michaelis Eastleigh Borough Council The Historical Association The People Project Researchers Group Southampton City Council The University of the Third Age Special Thanks to the Tudor Revels Working Group & The Heritage Lottery Fund
Continuing the walk...
The People Project
Roger Machados House On the north side of Simnel Street is a garden area where archaeologists uncovered the cellars of a large house. The rubbish pits contained imported pottery and Italian glass. Documents showed that Roger Machado, a herald to Edward IV, Richard III and Henry VII, lived here. He was from Portugal and his knowledge of English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Latin gave him a career as a diplomat and ambassador to the early Tudor kings. Turn left into Bugle Street and make your way back to St Michaels Square
St Michaels Church St Michaels church has an ancient history being the oldest building within the town walls, dating from 1070. During the Tudor period it found itself in the middle of the great cultural revolution that was the Reformation. It has endured many changes not only religious, and has altered its size and shape to accommodate both growing and reducing congregations. Its most prominent Tudor memorial is the stone carved tomb of Sir Richard Lyster, Lord Chief Justice of England, and former resident of Tudor House. Lyster trained as a lawyer during the reign of Henry VII, served Henry VIII and Edward VI as the country’s chief justice, died during the reign of Mary and saw his monument finally in place at the start of Elizabeth’s reign. He had taken part in the trials of Bishop Fisher and Sir Thomas More, attended the coronation of Anne Boleyn and managed to survive the dangers of the Tudor court. He married the widow of Sir John Dawtrey and by that means gained control of Tudor House where he died in 1554.
of the wal k End
To find out more about Tudor Southampton and all the people who lived in the town visit www.tudorrevels.co.uk you will find a map of the town – hover over the red flags for some historical snippets – a growing number of articles about town life and if you click on the tab called ‘records’ you will find a database of all known people who lived in the town. A group of around 20 volunteer researchers and editors have been working their way through the towns documents held in the Southampton archives and extracting information to create as in depth a picture as possible about the Tudor townsfolk. As a port the town has immigrants from across England but also there are French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, German, Saracens, Irish, Portuguese all living together within the walls. We can place many of them within specific parishes and trades. By constructing a time line of entries we can estimate lifespans and surviving wills have helped connect members of the same families.
Historical Survival
a walking tour around tudor Southampton
St Michael’s Church is the only church used in the Tudor period that has survived intact. All Saints and Holy Rood were bombed during the second world war and St Lawrence and St. Johns were demolished. The mother church of St. Mary was also demolished during the sixteenth century although subsequently rebuilt, only to also be bombed and rebuilt again after the second world war. Volunteers from the Friends of St. Michael enable the church to be open to visitors outside of the usual services and the church has much of interest inside including a 12th century medieval font, medieval brass eagle lecterns and stained glass windows including one depicting all five of the medieval churches within the walls.
The database is already being used by historians, genealogists, family historians and is contributing to the wider study of Southampton’s history.
e Peopl Histo Names ry s d Recor Family
This circular tour will take approximately 1 ½ hours start from St Michaels Square, Bugle Street.
This museum lovingly recreates life in a medieval merchants house at a time that the king of England remarked ‘Southampton abounds in merchants, sailors, mariners who flock from distant ports to that town with an immense quantity of cargoes, galleys, and ships plying with merchandise to the port there’ Henry VI 1447. The house would still be familiar in its layout and furniture to the early Tudor inhabitants of the town. It was stone built but with timber in the interior and the front above ground level. At the front was a shop with shutters, which would be open to indicate the owner was licensed to trade. Below was a stone barrel shaped vault for storing goods and above the front and back of the central hall there are three chambers. It would not have been classed as the grandest of houses but still a substantial residence and at one point was owned by Thomas Fashin who served as town steward during Elizabeth I’s reign.
Medieval Merchants House Museum, 58 French Street
Proposed Heritage Centre Gods House gate was one of the main gateways of the walled town and took its name from the adjacent property of God’s House or the Maison Dieu. Leading out on to the marsh, pasture lands, orchards and the bowling green, the gate included the substantial L-shaped tower used to store the town guns. Gods House was also the site of one of the earliest documented town mills in the country. During the Tudor period the mill was owned by the prominent Capelyn family. By 1600 Denis Rowse had taken over the rebuilt mill. His servant John Martin was presented at Court Leet for putting into a sack of Mr Toldervay’s wheat ‘a pottle or more of the Sande of the sea, and grounded it all together with the wheat to the great hurt and damage of the people that showld eat the same and great unwholesomnes of the bread for mans boddie.’ A note in the margin says that the culprit was punished in the pillory.
Gods House Tower, Winkle Street
www.tudorrevels.co.uk Thanks also to: Aspace Bitterne Local History Society Cantores Michaelis Eastleigh Borough Council The Historical Association The People Project Researchers Group Southampton City Council The University of the Third Age Special Thanks to the Tudor Revels Working Group & The Heritage Lottery Fund
Continuing the walk...
Quarter Jacks, Bevis & Ascupart On the outside of Holy Rood church the church clock houses quarter jacks that date from the sixteenth century. These colourful figures strike the quarter hours and their costumes and faces suggest that they might be images of Sir Bevis of Hampton and his squire, the giant Ascupart. The legend of Sir Bevis dates back to the early middle ages and was a well read and well studied text up until the eighteenth century. In the late fifteenth century when towns in England were looking to assert their independence from the crown, they linked their history to a noble founder. This might be a saint or a Saxon king or a more legendary character. Southampton of course had an ideal candidate who already bore the towns name. In the Tudor period great wooden paintings of Bevis and Ascupart hung on the outside of the Bargate to overawe or welcome visitors arriving in the town.
The Dolphin In the sixteenth century the Dolphin was the largest inn in the town where many notable visitors would have stayed, or dined, as well as visiting merchants and traders. It had rooms with names such as the Dragon Room and the Kendalmens Room named for the visiting Kendal cloth merchants. Rooms were furnished with Turkish carpets, which would have been hung on the walls, and Venetian glass. The Kendalmens chamber had two standing beds, two truckle beds, three featherbeds and bolsters, two coverlets, a square table, bench, and painted cloth wall hangings. The courtyard would have had external galleries, providing a natural performing space for travelling theatre companies. All the famous theatre companies visited Southampton including Leicester’s Men, Lord Strange’s company and the Lord Chamberlain’s men. If you look North you will see the Bargate, which was the north gate and entrance to the Tudor town as well as the guildhall where the town court was presided over by the mayor.
This prominent corner tenement was one of the most important residences in Tudor Southampton and remained in continuous occupation until it eventually became a museum in 1912. All its former residents left their mark on the building but at its heart is the wood panelled banqueting hall. When John Dawtrey extended the property in the late fifteenth century he incorporated two former cottages at the rear of the main building. The house leads out into an impressive Tudor garden restored and landscaped by the garden historian Dr Sylvia Landsberg. It contains more than 100 flowers and herbs common in Tudor times, used for both culinary and medicinal purposes.
Tudor House Museum
City of Southampton Society Diaper Heritage Association Friends of St James Park Friends of Southampton Museums, Archives & Galleries Friends of Southampton Old Cemetary Friends of Town Quay Park Gosport Living History Group Hamble Valley Heritage Guides Old Town Residents Association Saint Michaels Church Sarah Siddons Fan Club Theatre Company Southampton City Archives Southampton City Museums & Archaeology Unit Southampton City Museums Archaeological Society Southampton Records Series Southampton Tourist Guides Association University of Southampton Willis Fleming Historical Trust Cross the High Street, turn left onto West St, then cross Castle Way. On the other side you will see Simnel Street, go down the street till you come to a garden on your right
Publication designed by www.themarketing-collective.com
The Tudor Revels was a two year project supported by a wide range of community, heritage and amenity organisations and funded by a grant from the Heritage Lottery. Its aim was to raise the profile of Southampton’s historic records and the way they can be used to interpret and bring to life the heritage of the town. The Revels have included a wide variety of public events including Michaelmas Fairs and dramatic performances, workshops in music, costume and dance, a whole host of talks and visits as well as offering training to heritage volunteers and budding researchers. It has also left a legacy via The People Project database, this walk leaflet and a book on Tudor Southampton which we hope will inspire future generations to become involved in local history and support the preservation of Southampton’s heritage.
About the Tudor Revels
Open out to start the walk
Southampton Museums
Friends & Supporters
The People Project
Roger Machados House On the north side of Simnel Street is a garden area where archaeologists uncovered the cellars of a large house. The rubbish pits contained imported pottery and Italian glass. Documents showed that Roger Machado, a herald to Edward IV, Richard III and Henry VII, lived here. He was from Portugal and his knowledge of English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Latin gave him a career as a diplomat and ambassador to the early Tudor kings. Turn left into Bugle Street and make your way back to St Michaels Square
St Michaels Church St Michaels church has an ancient history being the oldest building within the town walls, dating from 1070. During the Tudor period it found itself in the middle of the great cultural revolution that was the Reformation. It has endured many changes not only religious, and has altered its size and shape to accommodate both growing and reducing congregations. Its most prominent Tudor memorial is the stone carved tomb of Sir Richard Lyster, Lord Chief Justice of England, and former resident of Tudor House. Lyster trained as a lawyer during the reign of Henry VII, served Henry VIII and Edward VI as the country’s chief justice, died during the reign of Mary and saw his monument finally in place at the start of Elizabeth’s reign. He had taken part in the trials of Bishop Fisher and Sir Thomas More, attended the coronation of Anne Boleyn and managed to survive the dangers of the Tudor court. He married the widow of Sir John Dawtrey and by that means gained control of Tudor House where he died in 1554.
of the wal k End
To find out more about Tudor Southampton and all the people who lived in the town visit www.tudorrevels.co.uk you will find a map of the town – hover over the red flags for some historical snippets – a growing number of articles about town life and if you click on the tab called ‘records’ you will find a database of all known people who lived in the town. A group of around 20 volunteer researchers and editors have been working their way through the towns documents held in the Southampton archives and extracting information to create as in depth a picture as possible about the Tudor townsfolk. As a port the town has immigrants from across England but also there are French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, German, Saracens, Irish, Portuguese all living together within the walls. We can place many of them within specific parishes and trades. By constructing a time line of entries we can estimate lifespans and surviving wills have helped connect members of the same families.
Historical Survival
a walking tour around tudor Southampton
St Michael’s Church is the only church used in the Tudor period that has survived intact. All Saints and Holy Rood were bombed during the second world war and St Lawrence and St. Johns were demolished. The mother church of St. Mary was also demolished during the sixteenth century although subsequently rebuilt, only to also be bombed and rebuilt again after the second world war. Volunteers from the Friends of St. Michael enable the church to be open to visitors outside of the usual services and the church has much of interest inside including a 12th century medieval font, medieval brass eagle lecterns and stained glass windows including one depicting all five of the medieval churches within the walls.
The database is already being used by historians, genealogists, family historians and is contributing to the wider study of Southampton’s history.
Names
This circular tour will take approximately 1 ½ hours start from St Michaels Square, Bugle Street.
e Peopl Histo ry ds Family
Recor
This museum lovingly recreates life in a medieval merchants house at a time that the king of England remarked ‘Southampton abounds in merchants, sailors, mariners who flock from distant ports to that town with an immense quantity of cargoes, galleys, and ships plying with merchandise to the port there’ Henry VI 1447. The house would still be familiar in its layout and furniture to the early Tudor inhabitants of the town. It was stone built but with timber in the interior and the front above ground level. At the front was a shop with shutters, which would be open to indicate the owner was licensed to trade. Below was a stone barrel shaped vault for storing goods and above the front and back of the central hall there are three chambers. It would not have been classed as the grandest of houses but still a substantial residence and at one point was owned by Thomas Fashin who served as town steward during Elizabeth I’s reign.
Medieval Merchants House Museum, 58 French Street
Proposed Heritage Centre Gods House gate was one of the main gateways of the walled town and took its name from the adjacent property of God’s House or the Maison Dieu. Leading out on to the marsh, pasture lands, orchards and the bowling green, the gate included the substantial L-shaped tower used to store the town guns. Gods House was also the site of one of the earliest documented town mills in the country. During the Tudor period the mill was owned by the prominent Capelyn family. By 1600 Denis Rowse had taken over the rebuilt mill. His servant John Martin was presented at Court Leet for putting into a sack of Mr Toldervay’s wheat ‘a pottle or more of the Sande of the sea, and grounded it all together with the wheat to the great hurt and damage of the people that showld eat the same and great unwholesomnes of the bread for mans boddie.’ A note in the margin says that the culprit was punished in the pillory.
Gods House Tower, Winkle Street
www.tudorrevels.co.uk Thanks also to: Aspace Bitterne Local History Society Cantores Michaelis Eastleigh Borough Council The Historical Association The People Project Researchers Group Southampton City Council The University of the Third Age Special Thanks to the Tudor Revels Working Group & The Heritage Lottery Fund
Continuing the walk...
Quarter Jacks, Bevis & Ascupart On the outside of Holy Rood church the church clock houses quarter jacks that date from the sixteenth century. These colourful figures strike the quarter hours and their costumes and faces suggest that they might be images of Sir Bevis of Hampton and his squire, the giant Ascupart. The legend of Sir Bevis dates back to the early middle ages and was a well read and well studied text up until the eighteenth century. In the late fifteenth century when towns in England were looking to assert their independence from the crown, they linked their history to a noble founder. This might be a saint or a Saxon king or a more legendary character. Southampton of course had an ideal candidate who already bore the towns name. In the Tudor period great wooden paintings of Bevis and Ascupart hung on the outside of the Bargate to overawe or welcome visitors arriving in the town.
The Dolphin In the sixteenth century the Dolphin was the largest inn in the town where many notable visitors would have stayed, or dined, as well as visiting merchants and traders. It had rooms with names such as the Dragon Room and the Kendalmens Room named for the visiting Kendal cloth merchants. Rooms were furnished with Turkish carpets, which would have been hung on the walls, and Venetian glass. The Kendalmens chamber had two standing beds, two truckle beds, three featherbeds and bolsters, two coverlets, a square table, bench, and painted cloth wall hangings. The courtyard would have had external galleries, providing a natural performing space for travelling theatre companies. All the famous theatre companies visited Southampton including Leicester’s Men, Lord Strange’s company and the Lord Chamberlain’s men. If you look North you will see the Bargate, which was the north gate and entrance to the Tudor town as well as the guildhall where the town court was presided over by the mayor.
This prominent corner tenement was one of the most important residences in Tudor Southampton and remained in continuous occupation until it eventually became a museum in 1912. All its former residents left their mark on the building but at its heart is the wood panelled banqueting hall. When John Dawtrey extended the property in the late fifteenth century he incorporated two former cottages at the rear of the main building. The house leads out into an impressive Tudor garden restored and landscaped by the garden historian Dr Sylvia Landsberg. It contains more than 100 flowers and herbs common in Tudor times, used for both culinary and medicinal purposes.
Tudor House Museum
City of Southampton Society Diaper Heritage Association Friends of St James Park Friends of Southampton Museums, Archives & Galleries Friends of Southampton Old Cemetary Friends of Town Quay Park Gosport Living History Group Hamble Valley Heritage Guides Old Town Residents Association Saint Michaels Church Sarah Siddons Fan Club Theatre Company Southampton City Archives Southampton City Museums & Archaeology Unit Southampton City Museums Archaeological Society Southampton Records Series Southampton Tourist Guides Association University of Southampton Willis Fleming Historical Trust Cross the High Street, turn left onto West St, then cross Castle Way. On the other side you will see Simnel Street, go down the street till you come to a garden on your right
Publication designed by www.themarketing-collective.com
The Tudor Revels was a two year project supported by a wide range of community, heritage and amenity organisations and funded by a grant from the Heritage Lottery. Its aim was to raise the profile of Southampton’s historic records and the way they can be used to interpret and bring to life the heritage of the town. The Revels have included a wide variety of public events including Michaelmas Fairs and dramatic performances, workshops in music, costume and dance, a whole host of talks and visits as well as offering training to heritage volunteers and budding researchers. It has also left a legacy via The People Project database, this walk leaflet and a book on Tudor Southampton which we hope will inspire future generations to become involved in local history and support the preservation of Southampton’s heritage.
About the Tudor Revels
Open out to start the walk
Southampton Museums
Friends & Supporters
The People Project
Roger Machados House On the north side of Simnel Street is a garden area where archaeologists uncovered the cellars of a large house. The rubbish pits contained imported pottery and Italian glass. Documents showed that Roger Machado, a herald to Edward IV, Richard III and Henry VII, lived here. He was from Portugal and his knowledge of English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Latin gave him a career as a diplomat and ambassador to the early Tudor kings. Turn left into Bugle Street and make your way back to St Michaels Square
St Michaels Church St Michaels church has an ancient history being the oldest building within the town walls, dating from 1070. During the Tudor period it found itself in the middle of the great cultural revolution that was the Reformation. It has endured many changes not only religious, and has altered its size and shape to accommodate both growing and reducing congregations. Its most prominent Tudor memorial is the stone carved tomb of Sir Richard Lyster, Lord Chief Justice of England, and former resident of Tudor House. Lyster trained as a lawyer during the reign of Henry VII, served Henry VIII and Edward VI as the country’s chief justice, died during the reign of Mary and saw his monument finally in place at the start of Elizabeth’s reign. He had taken part in the trials of Bishop Fisher and Sir Thomas More, attended the coronation of Anne Boleyn and managed to survive the dangers of the Tudor court. He married the widow of Sir John Dawtrey and by that means gained control of Tudor House where he died in 1554.
of the wal k End
To find out more about Tudor Southampton and all the people who lived in the town visit www.tudorrevels.co.uk you will find a map of the town – hover over the red flags for some historical snippets – a growing number of articles about town life and if you click on the tab called ‘records’ you will find a database of all known people who lived in the town. A group of around 20 volunteer researchers and editors have been working their way through the towns documents held in the Southampton archives and extracting information to create as in depth a picture as possible about the Tudor townsfolk. As a port the town has immigrants from across England but also there are French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, German, Saracens, Irish, Portuguese all living together within the walls. We can place many of them within specific parishes and trades. By constructing a time line of entries we can estimate lifespans and surviving wills have helped connect members of the same families.
Historical Survival
a walking tour around tudor Southampton
St Michael’s Church is the only church used in the Tudor period that has survived intact. All Saints and Holy Rood were bombed during the second world war and St Lawrence and St. Johns were demolished. The mother church of St. Mary was also demolished during the sixteenth century although subsequently rebuilt, only to also be bombed and rebuilt again after the second world war. Volunteers from the Friends of St. Michael enable the church to be open to visitors outside of the usual services and the church has much of interest inside including a 12th century medieval font, medieval brass eagle lecterns and stained glass windows including one depicting all five of the medieval churches within the walls.
The database is already being used by historians, genealogists, family historians and is contributing to the wider study of Southampton’s history.
Names
This circular tour will take approximately 1 ½ hours start from St Michaels Square, Bugle Street.
e Peopl Histo ry ds Family
Recor
This museum lovingly recreates life in a medieval merchants house at a time that the king of England remarked ‘Southampton abounds in merchants, sailors, mariners who flock from distant ports to that town with an immense quantity of cargoes, galleys, and ships plying with merchandise to the port there’ Henry VI 1447. The house would still be familiar in its layout and furniture to the early Tudor inhabitants of the town. It was stone built but with timber in the interior and the front above ground level. At the front was a shop with shutters, which would be open to indicate the owner was licensed to trade. Below was a stone barrel shaped vault for storing goods and above the front and back of the central hall there are three chambers. It would not have been classed as the grandest of houses but still a substantial residence and at one point was owned by Thomas Fashin who served as town steward during Elizabeth I’s reign.
Medieval Merchants House Museum, 58 French Street
Proposed Heritage Centre Gods House gate was one of the main gateways of the walled town and took its name from the adjacent property of God’s House or the Maison Dieu. Leading out on to the marsh, pasture lands, orchards and the bowling green, the gate included the substantial L-shaped tower used to store the town guns. Gods House was also the site of one of the earliest documented town mills in the country. During the Tudor period the mill was owned by the prominent Capelyn family. By 1600 Denis Rowse had taken over the rebuilt mill. His servant John Martin was presented at Court Leet for putting into a sack of Mr Toldervay’s wheat ‘a pottle or more of the Sande of the sea, and grounded it all together with the wheat to the great hurt and damage of the people that showld eat the same and great unwholesomnes of the bread for mans boddie.’ A note in the margin says that the culprit was punished in the pillory.
Gods House Tower, Winkle Street
www.tudorrevels.co.uk Thanks also to: Aspace Bitterne Local History Society Cantores Michaelis Eastleigh Borough Council The Historical Association The People Project Researchers Group Southampton City Council The University of the Third Age Special Thanks to the Tudor Revels Working Group & The Heritage Lottery Fund
Continuing the walk...
Quarter Jacks, Bevis & Ascupart On the outside of Holy Rood church the church clock houses quarter jacks that date from the sixteenth century. These colourful figures strike the quarter hours and their costumes and faces suggest that they might be images of Sir Bevis of Hampton and his squire, the giant Ascupart. The legend of Sir Bevis dates back to the early middle ages and was a well read and well studied text up until the eighteenth century. In the late fifteenth century when towns in England were looking to assert their independence from the crown, they linked their history to a noble founder. This might be a saint or a Saxon king or a more legendary character. Southampton of course had an ideal candidate who already bore the towns name. In the Tudor period great wooden paintings of Bevis and Ascupart hung on the outside of the Bargate to overawe or welcome visitors arriving in the town.
The Dolphin In the sixteenth century the Dolphin was the largest inn in the town where many notable visitors would have stayed, or dined, as well as visiting merchants and traders. It had rooms with names such as the Dragon Room and the Kendalmens Room named for the visiting Kendal cloth merchants. Rooms were furnished with Turkish carpets, which would have been hung on the walls, and Venetian glass. The Kendalmens chamber had two standing beds, two truckle beds, three featherbeds and bolsters, two coverlets, a square table, bench, and painted cloth wall hangings. The courtyard would have had external galleries, providing a natural performing space for travelling theatre companies. All the famous theatre companies visited Southampton including Leicester’s Men, Lord Strange’s company and the Lord Chamberlain’s men. If you look North you will see the Bargate, which was the north gate and entrance to the Tudor town as well as the guildhall where the town court was presided over by the mayor.
This prominent corner tenement was one of the most important residences in Tudor Southampton and remained in continuous occupation until it eventually became a museum in 1912. All its former residents left their mark on the building but at its heart is the wood panelled banqueting hall. When John Dawtrey extended the property in the late fifteenth century he incorporated two former cottages at the rear of the main building. The house leads out into an impressive Tudor garden restored and landscaped by the garden historian Dr Sylvia Landsberg. It contains more than 100 flowers and herbs common in Tudor times, used for both culinary and medicinal purposes.
Tudor House Museum
City of Southampton Society Diaper Heritage Association Friends of St James Park Friends of Southampton Museums, Archives & Galleries Friends of Southampton Old Cemetary Friends of Town Quay Park Gosport Living History Group Hamble Valley Heritage Guides Old Town Residents Association Saint Michaels Church Sarah Siddons Fan Club Theatre Company Southampton City Archives Southampton City Museums & Archaeology Unit Southampton City Museums Archaeological Society Southampton Records Series Southampton Tourist Guides Association University of Southampton Willis Fleming Historical Trust Cross the High Street, turn left onto West St, then cross Castle Way. On the other side you will see Simnel Street, go down the street till you come to a garden on your right
Publication designed by www.themarketing-collective.com
The Tudor Revels was a two year project supported by a wide range of community, heritage and amenity organisations and funded by a grant from the Heritage Lottery. Its aim was to raise the profile of Southampton’s historic records and the way they can be used to interpret and bring to life the heritage of the town. The Revels have included a wide variety of public events including Michaelmas Fairs and dramatic performances, workshops in music, costume and dance, a whole host of talks and visits as well as offering training to heritage volunteers and budding researchers. It has also left a legacy via The People Project database, this walk leaflet and a book on Tudor Southampton which we hope will inspire future generations to become involved in local history and support the preservation of Southampton’s heritage.
About the Tudor Revels
Open out to start the walk
Southampton Museums
Friends & Supporters
The People Project
Roger Machados House On the north side of Simnel Street is a garden area where archaeologists uncovered the cellars of a large house. The rubbish pits contained imported pottery and Italian glass. Documents showed that Roger Machado, a herald to Edward IV, Richard III and Henry VII, lived here. He was from Portugal and his knowledge of English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Latin gave him a career as a diplomat and ambassador to the early Tudor kings. Turn left into Bugle Street and make your way back to St Michaels Square
St Michaels Church St Michaels church has an ancient history being the oldest building within the town walls, dating from 1070. During the Tudor period it found itself in the middle of the great cultural revolution that was the Reformation. It has endured many changes not only religious, and has altered its size and shape to accommodate both growing and reducing congregations. Its most prominent Tudor memorial is the stone carved tomb of Sir Richard Lyster, Lord Chief Justice of England, and former resident of Tudor House. Lyster trained as a lawyer during the reign of Henry VII, served Henry VIII and Edward VI as the country’s chief justice, died during the reign of Mary and saw his monument finally in place at the start of Elizabeth’s reign. He had taken part in the trials of Bishop Fisher and Sir Thomas More, attended the coronation of Anne Boleyn and managed to survive the dangers of the Tudor court. He married the widow of Sir John Dawtrey and by that means gained control of Tudor House where he died in 1554.
of the wal k End
To find out more about Tudor Southampton and all the people who lived in the town visit www.tudorrevels.co.uk you will find a map of the town – hover over the red flags for some historical snippets – a growing number of articles about town life and if you click on the tab called ‘records’ you will find a database of all known people who lived in the town. A group of around 20 volunteer researchers and editors have been working their way through the towns documents held in the Southampton archives and extracting information to create as in depth a picture as possible about the Tudor townsfolk. As a port the town has immigrants from across England but also there are French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, German, Saracens, Irish, Portuguese all living together within the walls. We can place many of them within specific parishes and trades. By constructing a time line of entries we can estimate lifespans and surviving wills have helped connect members of the same families.
Historical Survival
a walking tour around tudor Southampton
St Michael’s Church is the only church used in the Tudor period that has survived intact. All Saints and Holy Rood were bombed during the second world war and St Lawrence and St. Johns were demolished. The mother church of St. Mary was also demolished during the sixteenth century although subsequently rebuilt, only to also be bombed and rebuilt again after the second world war. Volunteers from the Friends of St. Michael enable the church to be open to visitors outside of the usual services and the church has much of interest inside including a 12th century medieval font, medieval brass eagle lecterns and stained glass windows including one depicting all five of the medieval churches within the walls.
The database is already being used by historians, genealogists, family historians and is contributing to the wider study of Southampton’s history.
Names
This circular tour will take approximately 1 ½ hours start from St Michaels Square, Bugle Street.
e Peopl Histo ry ds Family
Recor
Publication designed by www.themarketing-collective.com
www.tudorrevels.co.uk
The Tudor Revels was a two year project supported by a wide range of community, heritage and amenity organisations and funded by a grant from the Heritage Lottery. Its aim was to raise the profile of Southampton’s historic records and the way they can be used to interpret and bring to life the heritage of the town. The Revels have included a wide variety of public events including Michaelmas Fairs and dramatic performances, workshops in music, costume and dance, a whole host of talks and visits as well as offering training to heritage volunteers and budding researchers. It has also left a legacy via The People Project database, this walk leaflet and a book on Tudor Southampton which we hope will inspire future generations to become involved in local history and support the preservation of Southampton’s heritage.
Gods House Tower, Winkle Street
Southampton Museums
Friends & Supporters If you look North you will see the Bargate, which was the north gate and entrance to the Tudor town as well as the guildhall where the town court was presided over by the mayor. ross the High Street, turn left onto West St, then cross Castle C Way. On the other side you will see Simnel Street, go down the street till you come to a garden on your right
Tudor House Museum
Medieval Merchants House Museum, 58 French Street
City of Southampton Society Diaper Heritage Association Friends of St James Park Friends of Southampton Museums, Archives & Galleries Friends of Southampton Old Cemetary Friends of Town Quay Park Gosport Living History Group Hamble Valley Heritage Guides Old Town Residents Association Saint Michaels Church Sarah Siddons Fan Club Theatre Company Southampton City Archives Southampton City Museums & Archaeology Unit Southampton City Museums Archaeological Society Southampton Records Series Southampton Tourist Guides Association University of Southampton Willis Fleming Historical Trust In the sixteenth century the Dolphin was the largest inn in the town where many notable visitors would have stayed, or dined, as well as visiting merchants and traders. It had rooms with names such as the Dragon Room and the Kendalmens Room named for the visiting Kendal cloth merchants. Rooms were furnished with Turkish carpets, which would have been hung on the walls, and Venetian glass. The Kendalmens chamber had two standing beds, two truckle beds, three featherbeds and bolsters, two coverlets, a square table, bench, and painted cloth wall hangings. The courtyard would have had external galleries, providing a natural performing space for travelling theatre companies. All the famous theatre companies visited Southampton including Leicester’s Men, Lord Strange’s company and the Lord Chamberlain’s men.
Open out to start the walk
Proposed Heritage Centre Gods House gate was one of the main gateways of the walled town and took its name from the adjacent property of God’s House or the Maison Dieu. Leading out on to the marsh, pasture lands, orchards and the bowling green, the gate included the substantial L-shaped tower used to store the town guns. Gods House was also the site of one of the earliest documented town mills in the country. During the Tudor period the mill was owned by the prominent Capelyn family. By 1600 Denis Rowse had taken over the rebuilt mill. His servant John Martin was presented at Court Leet for putting into a sack of Mr Toldervay’s wheat ‘a pottle or more of the Sande of the sea, and grounded it all together with the wheat to the great hurt and damage of the people that showld eat the same and great unwholesomnes of the bread for mans boddie.’ A note in the margin says that the culprit was punished in the pillory.
The Dolphin
This prominent corner tenement was one of the most important residences in Tudor Southampton and remained in continuous occupation until it eventually became a museum in 1912. All its former residents left their mark on the building but at its heart is the wood panelled banqueting hall. When John Dawtrey extended the property in the late fifteenth century he incorporated two former cottages at the rear of the main building. The house leads out into an impressive Tudor garden restored and landscaped by the garden historian Dr Sylvia Landsberg. It contains more than 100 flowers and herbs common in Tudor times, used for both culinary and medicinal purposes.
This museum lovingly recreates life in a medieval merchants house at a time that the king of England remarked ‘Southampton abounds in merchants, sailors, mariners who flock from distant ports to that town with an immense quantity of cargoes, galleys, and ships plying with merchandise to the port there’ Henry VI 1447. The house would still be familiar in its layout and furniture to the early Tudor inhabitants of the town. It was stone built but with timber in the interior and the front above ground level. At the front was a shop with shutters, which would be open to indicate the owner was licensed to trade. Below was a stone barrel shaped vault for storing goods and above the front and back of the central hall there are three chambers. It would not have been classed as the grandest of houses but still a substantial residence and at one point was owned by Thomas Fashin who served as town steward during Elizabeth I’s reign.
Quarter Jacks, Bevis & Ascupart On the outside of Holy Rood church the church clock houses quarter jacks that date from the sixteenth century. These colourful figures strike the quarter hours and their costumes and faces suggest that they might be images of Sir Bevis of Hampton and his squire, the giant Ascupart. The legend of Sir Bevis dates back to the early middle ages and was a well read and well studied text up until the eighteenth century. In the late fifteenth century when towns in England were looking to assert their independence from the crown, they linked their history to a noble founder. This might be a saint or a Saxon king or a more legendary character. Southampton of course had an ideal candidate who already bore the towns name. In the Tudor period great wooden paintings of Bevis and Ascupart hung on the outside of the Bargate to overawe or welcome visitors arriving in the town.
About the Tudor Revels
Thanks also to: Aspace Bitterne Local History Society Cantores Michaelis Eastleigh Borough Council The Historical Association The People Project Researchers Group Southampton City Council The University of the Third Age Special Thanks to the Tudor Revels Working Group & The Heritage Lottery Fund
Continuing the walk...
The People Project
Roger Machados House On the north side of Simnel Street is a garden area where archaeologists uncovered the cellars of a large house. The rubbish pits contained imported pottery and Italian glass. Documents showed that Roger Machado, a herald to Edward IV, Richard III and Henry VII, lived here. He was from Portugal and his knowledge of English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Latin gave him a career as a diplomat and ambassador to the early Tudor kings. Turn left into Bugle Street and make your way back to St Michaels Square
St Michaels Church St Michaels church has an ancient history being the oldest building within the town walls, dating from 1070. During the Tudor period it found itself in the middle of the great cultural revolution that was the Reformation. It has endured many changes not only religious, and has altered its size and shape to accommodate both growing and reducing congregations. Its most prominent Tudor memorial is the stone carved tomb of Sir Richard Lyster, Lord Chief Justice of England, and former resident of Tudor House. Lyster trained as a lawyer during the reign of Henry VII, served Henry VIII and Edward VI as the country’s chief justice, died during the reign of Mary and saw his monument finally in place at the start of Elizabeth’s reign. He had taken part in the trials of Bishop Fisher and Sir Thomas More, attended the coronation of Anne Boleyn and managed to survive the dangers of the Tudor court. He married the widow of Sir John Dawtrey and by that means gained control of Tudor House where he died in 1554.
of the wal k End
To find out more about Tudor Southampton and all the people who lived in the town visit www.tudorrevels.co.uk you will find a map of the town – hover over the red flags for some historical snippets – a growing number of articles about town life and if you click on the tab called ‘records’ you will find a database of all known people who lived in the town. A group of around 20 volunteer researchers and editors have been working their way through the towns documents held in the Southampton archives and extracting information to create as in depth a picture as possible about the Tudor townsfolk. As a port the town has immigrants from across England but also there are French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, German, Saracens, Irish, Portuguese all living together within the walls. We can place many of them within specific parishes and trades. By constructing a time line of entries we can estimate lifespans and surviving wills have helped connect members of the same families.
Historical Survival
a walking tour around tudor Southampton
St Michael’s Church is the only church used in the Tudor period that has survived intact. All Saints and Holy Rood were bombed during the second world war and St Lawrence and St. Johns were demolished. The mother church of St. Mary was also demolished during the sixteenth century although subsequently rebuilt, only to also be bombed and rebuilt again after the second world war. Volunteers from the Friends of St. Michael enable the church to be open to visitors outside of the usual services and the church has much of interest inside including a 12th century medieval font, medieval brass eagle lecterns and stained glass windows including one depicting all five of the medieval churches within the walls.
The database is already being used by historians, genealogists, family historians and is contributing to the wider study of Southampton’s history.
e Peopl Histo Names ry s d Recor Family
This circular tour will take approximately 1 ½ hours start from St Michaels Square, Bugle Street.
Publication designed by www.themarketing-collective.com
www.tudorrevels.co.uk
The Tudor Revels was a two year project supported by a wide range of community, heritage and amenity organisations and funded by a grant from the Heritage Lottery. Its aim was to raise the profile of Southampton’s historic records and the way they can be used to interpret and bring to life the heritage of the town. The Revels have included a wide variety of public events including Michaelmas Fairs and dramatic performances, workshops in music, costume and dance, a whole host of talks and visits as well as offering training to heritage volunteers and budding researchers. It has also left a legacy via The People Project database, this walk leaflet and a book on Tudor Southampton which we hope will inspire future generations to become involved in local history and support the preservation of Southampton’s heritage.
Gods House Tower, Winkle Street
Southampton Museums
Friends & Supporters If you look North you will see the Bargate, which was the north gate and entrance to the Tudor town as well as the guildhall where the town court was presided over by the mayor. ross the High Street, turn left onto West St, then cross Castle C Way. On the other side you will see Simnel Street, go down the street till you come to a garden on your right
Tudor House Museum
Medieval Merchants House Museum, 58 French Street
City of Southampton Society Diaper Heritage Association Friends of St James Park Friends of Southampton Museums, Archives & Galleries Friends of Southampton Old Cemetary Friends of Town Quay Park Gosport Living History Group Hamble Valley Heritage Guides Old Town Residents Association Saint Michaels Church Sarah Siddons Fan Club Theatre Company Southampton City Archives Southampton City Museums & Archaeology Unit Southampton City Museums Archaeological Society Southampton Records Series Southampton Tourist Guides Association University of Southampton Willis Fleming Historical Trust In the sixteenth century the Dolphin was the largest inn in the town where many notable visitors would have stayed, or dined, as well as visiting merchants and traders. It had rooms with names such as the Dragon Room and the Kendalmens Room named for the visiting Kendal cloth merchants. Rooms were furnished with Turkish carpets, which would have been hung on the walls, and Venetian glass. The Kendalmens chamber had two standing beds, two truckle beds, three featherbeds and bolsters, two coverlets, a square table, bench, and painted cloth wall hangings. The courtyard would have had external galleries, providing a natural performing space for travelling theatre companies. All the famous theatre companies visited Southampton including Leicester’s Men, Lord Strange’s company and the Lord Chamberlain’s men.
Open out to start the walk
Proposed Heritage Centre Gods House gate was one of the main gateways of the walled town and took its name from the adjacent property of God’s House or the Maison Dieu. Leading out on to the marsh, pasture lands, orchards and the bowling green, the gate included the substantial L-shaped tower used to store the town guns. Gods House was also the site of one of the earliest documented town mills in the country. During the Tudor period the mill was owned by the prominent Capelyn family. By 1600 Denis Rowse had taken over the rebuilt mill. His servant John Martin was presented at Court Leet for putting into a sack of Mr Toldervay’s wheat ‘a pottle or more of the Sande of the sea, and grounded it all together with the wheat to the great hurt and damage of the people that showld eat the same and great unwholesomnes of the bread for mans boddie.’ A note in the margin says that the culprit was punished in the pillory.
The Dolphin
This prominent corner tenement was one of the most important residences in Tudor Southampton and remained in continuous occupation until it eventually became a museum in 1912. All its former residents left their mark on the building but at its heart is the wood panelled banqueting hall. When John Dawtrey extended the property in the late fifteenth century he incorporated two former cottages at the rear of the main building. The house leads out into an impressive Tudor garden restored and landscaped by the garden historian Dr Sylvia Landsberg. It contains more than 100 flowers and herbs common in Tudor times, used for both culinary and medicinal purposes.
This museum lovingly recreates life in a medieval merchants house at a time that the king of England remarked ‘Southampton abounds in merchants, sailors, mariners who flock from distant ports to that town with an immense quantity of cargoes, galleys, and ships plying with merchandise to the port there’ Henry VI 1447. The house would still be familiar in its layout and furniture to the early Tudor inhabitants of the town. It was stone built but with timber in the interior and the front above ground level. At the front was a shop with shutters, which would be open to indicate the owner was licensed to trade. Below was a stone barrel shaped vault for storing goods and above the front and back of the central hall there are three chambers. It would not have been classed as the grandest of houses but still a substantial residence and at one point was owned by Thomas Fashin who served as town steward during Elizabeth I’s reign.
Quarter Jacks, Bevis & Ascupart On the outside of Holy Rood church the church clock houses quarter jacks that date from the sixteenth century. These colourful figures strike the quarter hours and their costumes and faces suggest that they might be images of Sir Bevis of Hampton and his squire, the giant Ascupart. The legend of Sir Bevis dates back to the early middle ages and was a well read and well studied text up until the eighteenth century. In the late fifteenth century when towns in England were looking to assert their independence from the crown, they linked their history to a noble founder. This might be a saint or a Saxon king or a more legendary character. Southampton of course had an ideal candidate who already bore the towns name. In the Tudor period great wooden paintings of Bevis and Ascupart hung on the outside of the Bargate to overawe or welcome visitors arriving in the town.
About the Tudor Revels
Thanks also to: Aspace Bitterne Local History Society Cantores Michaelis Eastleigh Borough Council The Historical Association The People Project Researchers Group Southampton City Council The University of the Third Age Special Thanks to the Tudor Revels Working Group & The Heritage Lottery Fund
Continuing the walk...
The People Project
Roger Machados House On the north side of Simnel Street is a garden area where archaeologists uncovered the cellars of a large house. The rubbish pits contained imported pottery and Italian glass. Documents showed that Roger Machado, a herald to Edward IV, Richard III and Henry VII, lived here. He was from Portugal and his knowledge of English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Latin gave him a career as a diplomat and ambassador to the early Tudor kings. Turn left into Bugle Street and make your way back to St Michaels Square
St Michaels Church St Michaels church has an ancient history being the oldest building within the town walls, dating from 1070. During the Tudor period it found itself in the middle of the great cultural revolution that was the Reformation. It has endured many changes not only religious, and has altered its size and shape to accommodate both growing and reducing congregations. Its most prominent Tudor memorial is the stone carved tomb of Sir Richard Lyster, Lord Chief Justice of England, and former resident of Tudor House. Lyster trained as a lawyer during the reign of Henry VII, served Henry VIII and Edward VI as the country’s chief justice, died during the reign of Mary and saw his monument finally in place at the start of Elizabeth’s reign. He had taken part in the trials of Bishop Fisher and Sir Thomas More, attended the coronation of Anne Boleyn and managed to survive the dangers of the Tudor court. He married the widow of Sir John Dawtrey and by that means gained control of Tudor House where he died in 1554.
of the wal k End
To find out more about Tudor Southampton and all the people who lived in the town visit www.tudorrevels.co.uk you will find a map of the town – hover over the red flags for some historical snippets – a growing number of articles about town life and if you click on the tab called ‘records’ you will find a database of all known people who lived in the town. A group of around 20 volunteer researchers and editors have been working their way through the towns documents held in the Southampton archives and extracting information to create as in depth a picture as possible about the Tudor townsfolk. As a port the town has immigrants from across England but also there are French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, German, Saracens, Irish, Portuguese all living together within the walls. We can place many of them within specific parishes and trades. By constructing a time line of entries we can estimate lifespans and surviving wills have helped connect members of the same families.
Historical Survival
a walking tour around tudor Southampton
St Michael’s Church is the only church used in the Tudor period that has survived intact. All Saints and Holy Rood were bombed during the second world war and St Lawrence and St. Johns were demolished. The mother church of St. Mary was also demolished during the sixteenth century although subsequently rebuilt, only to also be bombed and rebuilt again after the second world war. Volunteers from the Friends of St. Michael enable the church to be open to visitors outside of the usual services and the church has much of interest inside including a 12th century medieval font, medieval brass eagle lecterns and stained glass windows including one depicting all five of the medieval churches within the walls.
The database is already being used by historians, genealogists, family historians and is contributing to the wider study of Southampton’s history.
e Peopl Histo Names ry s d Recor Family
This circular tour will take approximately 1 ½ hours start from St Michaels Square, Bugle Street.
This museum lovingly recreates life in a medieval merchants house at a time that the king of England remarked ‘Southampton abounds in merchants, sailors, mariners who flock from distant ports to that town with an immense quantity of cargoes, galleys, and ships plying with merchandise to the port there’ Henry VI 1447. The house would still be familiar in its layout and furniture to the early Tudor inhabitants of the town. It was stone built but with timber in the interior and the front above ground level. At the front was a shop with shutters, which would be open to indicate the owner was licensed to trade. Below was a stone barrel shaped vault for storing goods and above the front and back of the central hall there are three chambers. It would not have been classed as the grandest of houses but still a substantial residence and at one point was owned by Thomas Fashin who served as town steward during Elizabeth I’s reign.
Medieval Merchants House Museum, 58 French Street
Proposed Heritage Centre Gods House gate was one of the main gateways of the walled town and took its name from the adjacent property of God’s House or the Maison Dieu. Leading out on to the marsh, pasture lands, orchards and the bowling green, the gate included the substantial L-shaped tower used to store the town guns. Gods House was also the site of one of the earliest documented town mills in the country. During the Tudor period the mill was owned by the prominent Capelyn family. By 1600 Denis Rowse had taken over the rebuilt mill. His servant John Martin was presented at Court Leet for putting into a sack of Mr Toldervay’s wheat ‘a pottle or more of the Sande of the sea, and grounded it all together with the wheat to the great hurt and damage of the people that showld eat the same and great unwholesomnes of the bread for mans boddie.’ A note in the margin says that the culprit was punished in the pillory.
Gods House Tower, Winkle Street
www.tudorrevels.co.uk Thanks also to: Aspace Bitterne Local History Society Cantores Michaelis Eastleigh Borough Council The Historical Association The People Project Researchers Group Southampton City Council The University of the Third Age Special Thanks to the Tudor Revels Working Group & The Heritage Lottery Fund
Continuing the walk...
Quarter Jacks, Bevis & Ascupart On the outside of Holy Rood church the church clock houses quarter jacks that date from the sixteenth century. These colourful figures strike the quarter hours and their costumes and faces suggest that they might be images of Sir Bevis of Hampton and his squire, the giant Ascupart. The legend of Sir Bevis dates back to the early middle ages and was a well read and well studied text up until the eighteenth century. In the late fifteenth century when towns in England were looking to assert their independence from the crown, they linked their history to a noble founder. This might be a saint or a Saxon king or a more legendary character. Southampton of course had an ideal candidate who already bore the towns name. In the Tudor period great wooden paintings of Bevis and Ascupart hung on the outside of the Bargate to overawe or welcome visitors arriving in the town.
The Dolphin In the sixteenth century the Dolphin was the largest inn in the town where many notable visitors would have stayed, or dined, as well as visiting merchants and traders. It had rooms with names such as the Dragon Room and the Kendalmens Room named for the visiting Kendal cloth merchants. Rooms were furnished with Turkish carpets, which would have been hung on the walls, and Venetian glass. The Kendalmens chamber had two standing beds, two truckle beds, three featherbeds and bolsters, two coverlets, a square table, bench, and painted cloth wall hangings. The courtyard would have had external galleries, providing a natural performing space for travelling theatre companies. All the famous theatre companies visited Southampton including Leicester’s Men, Lord Strange’s company and the Lord Chamberlain’s men. If you look North you will see the Bargate, which was the north gate and entrance to the Tudor town as well as the guildhall where the town court was presided over by the mayor.
This prominent corner tenement was one of the most important residences in Tudor Southampton and remained in continuous occupation until it eventually became a museum in 1912. All its former residents left their mark on the building but at its heart is the wood panelled banqueting hall. When John Dawtrey extended the property in the late fifteenth century he incorporated two former cottages at the rear of the main building. The house leads out into an impressive Tudor garden restored and landscaped by the garden historian Dr Sylvia Landsberg. It contains more than 100 flowers and herbs common in Tudor times, used for both culinary and medicinal purposes.
Tudor House Museum
City of Southampton Society Diaper Heritage Association Friends of St James Park Friends of Southampton Museums, Archives & Galleries Friends of Southampton Old Cemetary Friends of Town Quay Park Gosport Living History Group Hamble Valley Heritage Guides Old Town Residents Association Saint Michaels Church Sarah Siddons Fan Club Theatre Company Southampton City Archives Southampton City Museums & Archaeology Unit Southampton City Museums Archaeological Society Southampton Records Series Southampton Tourist Guides Association University of Southampton Willis Fleming Historical Trust Cross the High Street, turn left onto West St, then cross Castle Way. On the other side you will see Simnel Street, go down the street till you come to a garden on your right
Publication designed by www.themarketing-collective.com
The Tudor Revels was a two year project supported by a wide range of community, heritage and amenity organisations and funded by a grant from the Heritage Lottery. Its aim was to raise the profile of Southampton’s historic records and the way they can be used to interpret and bring to life the heritage of the town. The Revels have included a wide variety of public events including Michaelmas Fairs and dramatic performances, workshops in music, costume and dance, a whole host of talks and visits as well as offering training to heritage volunteers and budding researchers. It has also left a legacy via The People Project database, this walk leaflet and a book on Tudor Southampton which we hope will inspire future generations to become involved in local history and support the preservation of Southampton’s heritage.
About the Tudor Revels
Open out to start the walk
Southampton Museums
Friends & Supporters
The People Project
Roger Machados House On the north side of Simnel Street is a garden area where archaeologists uncovered the cellars of a large house. The rubbish pits contained imported pottery and Italian glass. Documents showed that Roger Machado, a herald to Edward IV, Richard III and Henry VII, lived here. He was from Portugal and his knowledge of English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Latin gave him a career as a diplomat and ambassador to the early Tudor kings. Turn left into Bugle Street and make your way back to St Michaels Square
St Michaels Church St Michaels church has an ancient history being the oldest building within the town walls, dating from 1070. During the Tudor period it found itself in the middle of the great cultural revolution that was the Reformation. It has endured many changes not only religious, and has altered its size and shape to accommodate both growing and reducing congregations. Its most prominent Tudor memorial is the stone carved tomb of Sir Richard Lyster, Lord Chief Justice of England, and former resident of Tudor House. Lyster trained as a lawyer during the reign of Henry VII, served Henry VIII and Edward VI as the country’s chief justice, died during the reign of Mary and saw his monument finally in place at the start of Elizabeth’s reign. He had taken part in the trials of Bishop Fisher and Sir Thomas More, attended the coronation of Anne Boleyn and managed to survive the dangers of the Tudor court. He married the widow of Sir John Dawtrey and by that means gained control of Tudor House where he died in 1554.
of the wal k End
To find out more about Tudor Southampton and all the people who lived in the town visit www.tudorrevels.co.uk you will find a map of the town – hover over the red flags for some historical snippets – a growing number of articles about town life and if you click on the tab called ‘records’ you will find a database of all known people who lived in the town. A group of around 20 volunteer researchers and editors have been working their way through the towns documents held in the Southampton archives and extracting information to create as in depth a picture as possible about the Tudor townsfolk. As a port the town has immigrants from across England but also there are French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, German, Saracens, Irish, Portuguese all living together within the walls. We can place many of them within specific parishes and trades. By constructing a time line of entries we can estimate lifespans and surviving wills have helped connect members of the same families.
Historical Survival
a walking tour around tudor Southampton
St Michael’s Church is the only church used in the Tudor period that has survived intact. All Saints and Holy Rood were bombed during the second world war and St Lawrence and St. Johns were demolished. The mother church of St. Mary was also demolished during the sixteenth century although subsequently rebuilt, only to also be bombed and rebuilt again after the second world war. Volunteers from the Friends of St. Michael enable the church to be open to visitors outside of the usual services and the church has much of interest inside including a 12th century medieval font, medieval brass eagle lecterns and stained glass windows including one depicting all five of the medieval churches within the walls.
The database is already being used by historians, genealogists, family historians and is contributing to the wider study of Southampton’s history.
Names
This circular tour will take approximately 1 ½ hours start from St Michaels Square, Bugle Street.
e Peopl Histo ry ds Family
Recor