Of all this what remains?  Happily more than might seem possible considering the enormous modern development of the place.  The town of Southampton stood looking south-west upon a tongue of land thrust out south into the water with the estuary of the Itchen upon the east, and Southampton Water upon the west, upon the south were the vast mud-flats swept by every tide which the great modern docks now occupy.  The town was, as we have seen, enclosed by walls, perhaps by Canute, certainly by the Normans, and these seem to have been enlarged by King John, and rebuilt and repaired after the French raid of 1338.  They formed a rude quadrilateral, roughly seven hundred yards from north to south, and three hundred from east to west, were from twenty-five to thirty feet high and of varying thickness.  Something of them still remains, especially upon the west of the town over the quays.  Here we have two great portions of the old wall which is practically continuous from the site of the Bugle Tower upon the south, to the site of the Bigglesgate about half-way up this western side.  This portion includes two of the old gates, the West Gate and the Blue Anchor Postern.  Beyond the site of the Bigglesgate the old wall has been destroyed as far as the Castle, but from there it still stands all the way to the Arundel Tower at the north-west corner of the town.  So much for the western front.  Upon the north the wall is broken down at the western end, the Bargate, which still stands, being isolated, but beyond two portions remain complete as far as the Polymond Tower at the north-east angle.  Upon the east of the town there is very little standing until we come to the southern corner, where God’s House Tower and the South-East Gate remain.  Upon the south almost nothing is left.

Southampton in its mediaeval greatness had eight gates, of which, as we see, four remain:  two upon the west, the West Gate and the Blue Anchor Postern; one upon the north, the Bargate; upon the east, or rather at the south-eastern angle of the walls, God’s House or South-East Gate; upon the south none at all.

The West Gate is a plain but beautiful work of the fourteenth century, a great square tower over a pointed arch, under which is the entry.  The tower within consists of three stages, the last being embattled and now roofed, while the first is reached by a picturesque outside stairway of stone, which served both it and the ramparts.  Close by, against the wall, is a timber building upon a stone basement, called the guard-room, dating from the fifteenth century.

The best portions of the old wall run northward from the West Gate over the western shore road.  This is Norman work added to in the fourteenth century.  Here is the Blue Anchor Postern, or as it is more properly called, simply the Postern, little more than a round archway within the great arcading and the wall itself.  Just to the south of this gate is the twelfth-century building known as King John’s Palace.  We