7:20 PM found us boarding an American Airlines flight from Philadelphia to Heathrow in London. From London, we transferred to Southampton for an overnight stay at the VoCo Hotel and then to board the Majestic Princess for a Northern Europe cruise. We arrived in Southampton on June 28 and found our hotel very near to the pier where the Majestic Princess would dock.
Southampton today is a lively port city where the modern cruise terminal stands beside centuries of maritime history. It is a fitting place to begin our journey because it is, above all, a city of departures.
For centuries, ships have left this historic port for distant places, carrying merchants, migrants, soldiers, and travelers out into the wider world. Today, Southampton still has that sense of movement and anticipation — a working waterfront, a maritime past, and the quiet excitement that comes with standing at the beginning of a voyage.
After checking in, we took a stroll around the areas near the hotel. Our first destination was the SeaCity Museum. There we found an extensive display about the Titanic. As we strolled through the museum, I snapped a couple of photos.
Remnants of old city walls & tower
Museum and its enormous clock tower from the rear
Scale model: Titanic
The museum endeavors to put you into the atmosphere and circumstances surrounding the first and last sailing of the Titanic, the people on board and the lives lost.
The crew; photos of the crew members, otherwise empty images
The museum traces some of the local crew members, their families, and their lives. Lives lived and lost.
Then, on our way to the Tudor House. As we went, we passed through the Bargate. The Bargate is one of those places where the past suddenly appears in the middle of the present city. Built as part of Southampton’s medieval walls, it once marked the main entrance into the old town. Today it stands surrounded by modern streets and shops, but still holds its place as a reminder of Southampton’s long history.
Bargate
Bargate
Passing through the Old City Wall
The Tudor House immediately stood apart from everything around it. It is one of the most striking reminders of old Southampton, with its dark timber frame and white panels standing out against the more modern city around it. Built in the late 15th century, it gives a sense of the town as it existed long before cruise ships and today’s busy port.
Tudor House
Tudor House
Briefly, the story of the property seems to run in layers. The oldest part of the site is King John’s Palace, a Norman house dating to about 1180. In the 1300s, parts of that earlier structure were altered as Southampton’s town walls developed. Interesting to note, the sea came right up to the palace walls.
Walls of King John’s Palace
The Tudor House itself took shape around 1491, when Sir John Dawtrey joined three cottages into the larger timber-framed house we see today; in the 1500s and early 1700s it was a prosperous home for wealthy Southampton families. After about 1750, the property declined with the surrounding neighborhood, and by the 1800s it had been divided into separate dwellings and businesses. It was nearly lost, but William Spranger bought and restored it in the late 1800s, and it opened as a museum in 1912. More recently, the house again needed major rescue work, closing in 2002 for restoration before reopening as the museum and garden visitors see today.
Attached to the house is a lovely English garden. Before we toured inside, we visited the garden, and I took a couple of photos while there.
Tudor House Gardens
Flowers and Bee
The bee was working its way through a patch of lavender, moving from one purple flower head to the next. The soft color of the blossoms and the narrow green leaves gave the scene a quiet, summery feeling. It was one of those small travel moments that was easy to overlook but worth stopping for. The photograph reminded me that sometimes the best details are found close to the ground, away from the larger sights.
Poppies after blooming
By the time I saw these poppies, the flowers themselves had already faded, leaving behind their rounded seed pods. They had a quiet beauty of their own, almost sculptural, standing above the green leaves like small ornaments in the garden. It was another reminder that a garden does not have to be in full bloom to be interesting.
Roofs and chimneys of Tudor House from the garden
Then we made our way inside, starting with the banquet hall.
Banquet Hall, Tudor House
The interior was sort of chopped up and unphotographable. I took this photo of the steps as I found it interesting, especially the portraits on the wall.
Stairs up or down; it all depends
The property itself is very interesting, and its history, as described, is also interesting. Fortunately, Tudor House was saved from demolition in the late 1800s, early 1900s. There is a lot of history to the property, and one of the most interesting is in the following photo of the graffiti wall, where earlier visitors had scratched drawings and marks into the surface. It was uncovered during a renovation. Some of the marks appear to have been made by sailors, lodgers, or others connected with Southampton’s maritime life, leaving behind ships, faces, symbols, and perhaps a bit of grumbling as well. It was a small but very human reminder that history is not only found in formal rooms and fine furniture, but also in the complaints, boredom, humor, and passing presence of ordinary people.
Graffiti wall
When we first entered the banquet hall, we sat down to listen to a seven-minute audio story about the property and its reclamation. Sitting next to me was a lovely young Chinese graduate student, Leighton, who is a volunteer guide in the property. She was just learning the property and, as I recall her saying, it was her first day there. In any event, she was delightful and interesting and showed us through the property, essentially giving us a private tour. Shortly after starting, we were joined by Alan Tostig, our Guiding Knight. He is intimately familiar with the property, knowing all its nooks and crannies. It was truly a pleasure to meet them and walk through Tudor House with them.
Then, before we knew it, we were on our way back to the VoCo Hotel for drinks, dinner, and a good night’s sleep. I took two photos on the way: the first outside the walls of King John’s Palace and the second of a hydrangea peeking through a fence.
Outside King John’s Palace, where the sea met the land
Hydrangea
Now, let me explain the next photo. As I was sitting at dinner looking out the window I could see a shirt reflecting back at me. While the faint outline of a man’s head is there, I thought it more interesting that the grass was growing out of the shirt. So I took this photo and included it for its entertainment value. I hope you enjoy my sense of humor.
Shirt in the window
Southampton turned out to be more than a place to board the ship. In one afternoon, we moved from the memory of the Titanic, through medieval walls and the Bargate, into the layered history of Tudor House and its garden. It was a quiet but fitting beginning to the trip .