Southampton
— the harbour that watched the great ships leave.
Not only on a wall.
“The water comes up the Test and the Itchen and meets at the Town Quay, the way it has since the Romans built Clausentum on the eastern bank. The Bargate still stands where the medieval wall met the road north. The cruise terminals on the western docks took the place the ocean liners held a century ago; a White Star berth marker survives near Ocean Dock. The city carries its maritime weight quietly, in pubs, in stone, in the slow tide. from the studio
Southampton, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Southampton is a port city on the south coast of England, in Hampshire, sitting at the head of Southampton Water where the Rivers Test and Itchen meet the Solent. The city's population reaches roughly 250,000, with a wider metropolitan area larger again. Romans established Clausentum on the Itchen's east bank; the Saxons founded Hamwic, the medieval town walls and Bargate followed in the 13th and 14th centuries. The port handles Britain's largest cruise traffic and a major container terminal, and the University of Southampton sits north of the city centre.
About half of the medieval town wall still stands, the longest surviving stretch in England after York and Chester. The Bargate, built around 1180 with later additions, was the main north gate and still spans the High Street as a stone island in the modern traffic. God's House Tower at the south-east corner now holds a heritage centre. The Tudor merchant houses on French Street, including the surviving medieval merchant's house at 58 French Street, sit within a few minutes' walk of the quay where the Pilgrim Fathers boarded the Mayflower in 1620.
The RMS Titanic sailed from Berth 44 on 10 April 1912; more than 500 of the 549 Southampton residents who served as crew died when the ship struck ice four nights later. The SeaCity Museum on Havelock Road, opened in 2012, holds the city's Titanic archive. The summer programme runs the Mela in July, the Southampton International Boat Show across ten days in September at Mayflower Park, and the lighting of the cenotaph each November at the Watts memorial. Spring and early autumn give the steadiest weather.