Hampshire
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In August 1620 the Mayflower and Speedwell lay at Southampton before setting out for America. A stone column on Western Esplanade, unveiled by the American ambassador in 1913, marks the spot.
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God’s House Tower began as a sea gate in 1189, became a gun tower after the French raid of 1338, then a damp town gaol. Today you can climb it to the roof for views across Southampton Water.
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Beneath Southampton’s Old Town lie the stone cellars of a great medieval wine port, among them a vault built around 1180 to hold the King’s wine. They have outlasted a French raid, centuries of rebuilding and the Blitz.
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Sir John Dawtrey joined three cottages into Tudor House in 1491, and it survived Victorian slums and two near-collapses to become Southampton’s first museum. At the bottom of its garden stands a Norman merchant’s house named after a king who never stayed there.
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Southampton’s Bargate has guarded the way into the old town since about 1180. Behind it run the medieval walls, and beneath the streets lie the wine vaults of a great medieval port.
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No city lost more when Titanic sank than Southampton. Its memorials, to engineers who stayed at their posts and a band that played on, sit a short walk apart.