Visitors to Southampton’s bustling East Street are today greeted by an image of its namesake ‘East Gate’.
Installed last week, it will help visitors to visualise the layout of the old town walls in this area.
At their peak, the Medieval Walls completely encircled the Old Town, covering a distance of some 1 ¼ miles.
The East Gate disappeared completely in 1775 – it proved too much of an interruption to movement between the Town Centre and the suburbs to the east.
Jack Wilson, one of the founders of See Southampton, commented: “For many years I thought it a great shame that while three of the medieval City’s main gates were still standing (The Bargate, Westgate and God’s House Gate,) and the South or Watergate at least had remains to be seen, there was no remnant of the East Gate. I thought it would be an interesting idea to install a large picture of the Gate somewhere in East Street.
“My See Southampton colleague Godfrey Collyer owned an excellent print, but there were lots of complications about keeping the image sharp when it was blown up to window size.
“Meanwhile, my wife Jan spotted that there was a blank window in a great position, on the corner of East Street and Back-of-the -Walls, which Mike, the owner of ADS Recruitment, has generously allowed us to use. The remnants of old walls which are to be found to the right of the window identify the line of those walls, and the Gate was where they crossed East Street – the site could not be better positioned.”
The picture has already received many plaudits, and can be viewed just a short distance from the recently opened Bargate Quarter development.
<An image of the window is attached, with Jack Wilson, Godfrey Collyer and a member of the ADS Recruitment staff to the left, and the installers from printers ASAP (who also helped sponsor the work) to the right. Also attached is a picture showing the original window.>
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