Huge crowds out for the May Day celebrations on Above Bar Street. For a while it was tradition for a choir to sing from the top of the Bargate at dawn on the 1st of May. This tradition only dated back to the mid-1880s, and it was revived in 1913. I’d guess this photo was taken then, or maybe 1914.

Thomas Hibberd James’ late nineteenth century photograph of the lions that have been guarding the Bargate since 1743. They replaced an earlier pair of lions that dated back to around 1522. 1/4

Isaac Watts was born in Southampton on this day in 1674. He grew up on French Street and attended the nearby King Edward VI School. After completing his education he moved to London where he became ordained as an Independent minister. 1/5

In November 1871, this old lady went and had her photograph taken in Southampton. I suppose it’s very likely that she was born in the 1700s, long before the invention of photography. It’s amazing to consider the changes she would have witnessed during her life.

No information about this team, unfortunately. The image is on a postcard that was sent locally in Southampton to Miss Foy of 3 Upper Liverpool Street in October 1905. The message reads: ‘Next time I will try to be looking more cheerful, perhaps the circumstances will have changed.’

Two very different views from the same place on top of Southampton’s medieval walls.

View of the Junction from Commercial Road. The buildings behind the trams line Above Bar Street.

Eliza Hester Powell with her daughter, Lydia, photographed in Southampton on 20 March 1872. Eliza had married John Charles Powell in Southampton on 24 July 1871 and ‘Little Lydia’ (as she’s called on the back of the photo) was born a little over two months later, on 2 October 1871. 1/12

Porchester Road school, Woolston, 1926.

Castle Hall was a two-storey stone-built house situated in the south-west corner of the Southampton Castle grounds. It was originally built in the late eleventh or early-to-mid twelfth century at the base of low natural cliff on the shoreline. 1/5

Women making Spitfire parts at the Supermarine works in Woolston, early 1939. This factory in Southampton, where the Spitfire was originally designed and first built, would be targeted by the Luftwaffe during two daylight air raids in September 1940. 1/2

A couple of local football teams, photographed by William Pearce of 14 Shirley High Street.

The Arcades, part of Southampton’s fourteenth century defensive wall, photographed in the early 1900s.

Richard Norris Williams boarded Titanic at Cherbourg with his father, intending to return to America to study at Harvard and play tennis. 1/6

Scribbled on the back of this image: ‘Taken in Southampton after evacuation from France June 1940’

2/2

The Bassett Hotel on Burgess Road, pictured in the early 1900s. 1/2

‘The last Bridge from Southampton’ depicting a comically packed Floating Bridge about to depart Southampton for Woolston across the River Itchen. This postcard was published in Woolston and it was sent in 1916.

The Lido, a popular destination on a hot day! 🥵 There had been an open-air swimming pool here on the Western Shore since 1854. Back then, you’d pay four pence to get in (a penny after 5pm) and the entrance fee would include a towel. 1/9

‘Everyone is talking about the hot weather, and asking how long it is to continue before a change sets in, which is to cool us, and drench the thirsty earth with rain.’ Hampshire Advertiser, 13 August 1887. 🥵

It’s very warm so I’m trying to imagine myself on the Avenue during the 25 April 1908 snowstorm.

Southampton in the weeks after D-Day. Eighty-two years ago, in June 1944, the Bagg family are photographed in their garden on Hill Lane. Behind them in Rockleigh Road, an American field howitzer unit is ready and waiting to sail to Normandy. 📸: © IWM (NYT 27247)

Thousands of people welcomed Amelia Earhart to Southampton on this day in 1928 after she became the first woman to cross the Atlantic in an aeroplane. Photographed here with Wilmer Stultz (pilot), Lou Gordon (mechanic), and Southampton’s first female mayor, Lucia Foster Welch.

They say size doesn’t matter but for Southampton in the 1920s and 1930s, it definitely did. Back then, the town was home to some of the world’s largest ships and it was vital that the docks kept expanding and improving in order for Southampton to remain the country’s premier passenger port. 1/5

People have been passing through Southampton’s Bargate for over eight hundred years. Townsfolk, merchants, soldiers, sailors, pilgrims, tourists, nobles, paupers, kings and queens, my ancestors, your ancestors. The last tram to travel through what was once Southampton’s main gate did so in 1938.

‘A man who has spent 47 years collecting rates in Southampton was yesterday presented with a lawnmower by his colleagues in the City Treasurer’s Office, Civic Centre, Southampton, to mark his retirement… 1/8

On this day in 1982, QE2 returned home to Southampton from the Falklands War. On board were over seven hundred survivors from HMS Ardent, HMS Antelope, and HMS Coventry, which had all been sunk during the conflict. 📸: © IWM FKD 2816

Sadly, Mitchell would not live to see his iconic aircraft’s finest hour during the Second World War. Mitchell died from cancer at the age of just forty-two at his home in Russell Place, Southampton on this day in 1937. 3/3

Died on this day in 1937: Reginald Joseph Mitchell. He is best remembered for leading the team that designed the Spitfire at the Supermarine works on the banks of the River Itchen in Woolston, Southampton. 1/3

Wounded American troops arriving at Southampton from Normandy on this day in 1944, four days after D-Day. 📸: © IWM (A 24009) | © IWM (A 24008)