Southampton

Southampton town walls & Mayflower Pilgrims Memorial/Town Quay, Southampton SO14 2AP Hours: Open 24 hours It's a lovely place along the calming sea and in front of the Isle of Wight. For me, it was a therapy trip on a calming afternoon in January. Helped me a lot and I'm deeply grateful to the people who kept this place in back 16th century. Around half the length of the 2 km (1.25-mile) long medieval town walls still survive in the 21st century, mainly on Southampton's north and west sides, together with 13 of the 29 defensive towers and six out of the eight gates. The towers are a combination of circular and square designs, with many showing an "open-gorged" design, similar to those built in North Wales, that could be isolated from the rest of the walls by removing small wooden bridges. In general, the town walls at Southampton were poorly built in a somewhat chaotic fashion over several years. By contrast, the surviving gatehouses are sophisticated and well-designed, probably as a result of their civic importance. Archaeologists Oliver Creighton and Robert Higham describe the surviving walls as "extremely well preserved" and containing "unique survivals in a British context". town walls are a sequence of defensive structures built around the town in southern England. Although earlier Roman and Anglo-Saxon settlements around Southampton had been fortified with walls or ditches, the later walls originated with the town's move to the current site in the 10th century. The Mayflower arrived in Southampton in late July 1620 and several days later was joined by the Speedwell, carrying the Pilgrims from Leiden. They intended to prepare both vessels and sail in company directly to America.Address: Southampton was a thriving seaport offering all the commercial facilities to provision and equip for the long sea voyage. Many of the buildings and streets familiar to the Pilgrims then still exist. The town had established trading links with Virginia and Newfoundland, so there was an experienced pool of seamen who had previously made the dangerous Atlantic crossing. John Alden, a cooper, joined the Mayflower and it is thought William Brewster also slipped aboard here, having been in hiding after publishing material that angered King James. Stephen Hopkins from Hampshire also joined here and is known as the only Mayflower passenger with prior New World experience, having been shipwrecked in Bermuda in 1609. Southampton town walls & Mayflower Pilgrims Memorial