SEE Southampton

12/04/2025

Going to the city depot?
Southampton City Council

You must BOOK a slot on:

The recycling centre provides facilities for you to recycle a range of household and garden waste items. There is a charge for the disposal of certain types of waste material.

12/04/2025

Late 1800s by the Bargate
I wonder why it was thought important to advertise "genuine" ales?
" SCRASES BREWERY 1829-1947
The offices were next door to The Star hotel at 29 High Street and the brewery itself was in The Old Bond Store, Upper Back Of The Walls. " (Steve Roberts)

12/04/2025

Guided walks today & tomorrow at 1:30pm (from Bargate):

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/guided-walk-of-medieval-southampton-tickets-1301549452449

fans Southampton City Council Zoe Hanson RCM

Join our 90-minute walk with a SeeSouthampton qualified guide and experience Southampton's old walls, towers and underground wine vaults.

12/04/2025

Below the bridges at Meadow Lake archaeologists found a bronze rapier buried in mud. The rapier is 32 cm long (13 inches) long. No trace of its handle, which would have been made of wood, horn or bone, was identified.
Testwood Lakes is a 55-hectare nature reserve on the northwest edge of Southampton consisting of three lakes - Little Testwood Lake, Testwood Lake and Meadow Lake.
https://www.wessexarch.co.uk/our-work/testwood-lakes

12/04/2025

Before the Civic Centre rose majestically from the ground once known as the Marlands, the administration of Southampton was a scattered affair.

11/04/2025

Between 1946 and 1954, Southampton Corporation Transport took delivery of nearly 200 Park Royal bodied Guy Arabs, one of the largest standardised batch of buses for any operator outside London. The first of these were used for tram replacement, the trams finally ending in 1949, and the Arabs became the backbone of the fleet during the 1950s. Replacement of them began in 1961 with a mix of Leyland Titans and AEC Regents with Park Royal, East Lancs or Neepsend bodies, plus some single deck AEC Swifts and Seddon RUs. Despite all this variety, Southampton went back to a standard type double decker in the late 1960s with the arrival of their first Leyland Atlanteans.

The first were a batch of 20 PDR1A/1 type with East Lancs 76 seat bodies, which was to become the standard for all the Atlanteans delivered new to Southampton City Transport (the town had become a city in early 1964). These began to arrive in the summer of 1968 and started a new fleet number sequence from 101. A further 40 PDR1A/1s were to follow, 15 in December 1969 and January 1970, and the remainder in the first few months of 1971. All of these were virtually identical to the first 20 and were numbered from 120 onwards, but 123 was missing. That bus was destroyed by fire at the East Lancs factory and the number was not reused.

In October 1972 the first ten of a revised Atlantean AN68 type arrived. These had all the chassis updates associated with the new model but looked virtually the same as the PDR1s. There were a few small differences, such as the redesigned AN68 engine cover, some different opening side windows and a moving around of the front sidelights, but the overall look continued. Two more batches of 15 were to follow, the first in the spring of 1974, the rest in the last few months of 1975.

An updated version, the AN68A/1R, appeared in 1977 and a total of 65 were delivered over the next three years, all looking the same as before, although the fitting of a three-track front route number display was a new feature. The next ones arrived in September 1981, five of a new AN68C/1R type followed by five more just over a year later. These were Southampton’s last new Atlanteans and brought the total up to 175 (omitting the burnt out No.123), No.276 being the highest which, apart from a few small differences, looked very much like No.101.

Our picture shows April 1974 delivery 183 (PCR 306M) parked up when four years old between a couple of East Lancs bodied AEC Regent Vs. 183 shows the common style of Southampton’s Atlanteans with East Lancs’ standard body featuring low level curved windscreen, five bay bodywork in a bright ivory and red livery.

Southampton went on to try the Leyland Olympian and Dennis Dominator and ended up taking both types, although in much smaller numbers than the Atlanteans, many of which went on to work long lives in the city with some still running after First took over in 1997. In 1985, 133 and 134 had been converted for wheelchair access and five others were rebodied by East Lancs as 35 seat single deckers in late 1991, the first examples of a very brief trend of rebodying the type.

This photo and thousands of others can be purchased from The Transport Library, with proceeds going to fund The Bus Archive and its sister organisation The Omnibus Society. (Photographer Roy Marshall, copyright The Bus Archive, ref RMO2/RMM12C-29)

11/04/2025

The Bellemoor in Hill Lane.
Heard a story about a landlord who took his own life there with a gun, possibly 1950’s. Anyone know if that is true?

11/04/2025

TORONTO COURT, MILLBROOK
Residents, local school children and members of the local community came together at Toronto Court, Brendon Green in May 2018 to celebrate their efforts to improve their communal garden.
The celebrations included the unveiling of a Canadian brown bear art display and a live-carving of a resident designed maple leaf, honouring the community’s long-standing connections to Canada.
Toronto Court was the first complex built for sheltered social housing in Southampton back in 1951. It was funded by the Lord Mayor of London’s air raid distress grant, to which the people of Toronto Canada generously contributed in response to Southampton’s support for their troops during WW2.
There is also Adanac Park by the M271 which is Canada spelt backwards.

11/04/2025

This scheme to help those who feel they are in a vulnerable situation operates in many public areas.

11/04/2025

This year is the 10th anniversary of our Cruise Welcome Desks being run under the See Southampton banner, though they actually started a couple of years earlier than that.

Our tremendous volunteers are currently welcoming and helping Aida Nova and MSC passengers here for the day, and will shortly be adding Mein Schiff 3. We'd love to show you some of the thousands of passengers we've helped, but privacy rules at ABP do not allow that, which we completely understand.

If you fancy joining in the fun, drop me an email, and we'll meet for a chat: [email protected] - or you can come down and see us at play.

Note there is never any commitment to attend, it is 100% voluntary.

11/04/2025

11/04/2025

The Avenue, Southampton, 1907. Oil By J Ferry.

11/04/2025

Beaulieu River naval vessels
Buckler's Hard: a model of the village (on display in the Maritime Museum there) showing two part-completed vessels on the stocks
From the mid-18th century until the early 19th century, the Beaulieu River, and in particular Buckler's Hard, played an absolutely crucial role in Britain's seafaring history and in turn, the history of the nation.

11/04/2025

This week we are sharing another Southampton scene by an artist with local connections that has just been digitised as part of our Unlocking Collections project, thanks to funding from Arts Council England.

This painstakingly detailed drawing by Eric Meadus (1931-70) is dated February 1969 and is likely to be of Southampton’s 1920s–30s Flowers Roads Estate (Lobelia Road) of Swaythling where he lived. From an early age, Meadus showed an aptitude for drawing and became an accomplished draughtsman. Sadly, he died early due to an undiagnosed illness. In commemoration, Eric Meadus Close was developed next to Swaythling Railway Station, opening in 2011.

11/04/2025

A Martin Davey painting of Tudor house Southampton (plein air)
12" x 9.5" 2022, oil on mounting board, 2 1/2 hrs.

11/04/2025

In Westwood Road.
The Mayflower and the Speedwell ships left Southampton in August 1620. Only the Mayflower completed the journey to America.

11/04/2025