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Updated: May 23, 2025
The hen-pheasant was a solitary bird, having strayed away from the pheasant copses near the Itchen and found a nesting-place a mile away, on the other side of the valley, among the tall grasses and sedges on its border. I was the bird's only human neighbour, as I was staying in a fishing-cottage near the spot where the bird had its nest.
On the banks of the Itchen many important industries have been established during the last quarter of a century and, as a result of this and the inevitable disorder of a great port, Southampton's environs have suffered.
The old road did not pass through it as the modern road does; for as Mr Belloc seems to have proved the Pilgrim's Way, which descended to the river at Itchen A Bas as we have seen, crossed the ford at Itchen Stoke, Itchen Stakes that is, and proceeded east by south where the workhouse now stands, coming into the modern road again at Bishop Sutton.
The reference to Canute's House brings to mind the tradition, stoutly upheld by Hamptonians, that it was at "Canute's Point" at the mouth of the Itchen, and not at Bosham or Lymington, that the king gave his servile courtiers the historic rebuke chronicled by Camden.
This noble gateway, when approached from the city, is seen through the foliage, with a background of quaint high chimneys, church, and green leaves. The river Itchen flows alongside the road, half hidden among the trees. The St. Cross Hospital, with the thirteen brethren still living there in their black gowns and silver crosses, gives a vivid picture of ancient England.
It is exceedingly quaint and, although restored, unspoilt in appearance. Over the porch was once a hermit's cell. The clipped and much maltreated stone Rood at the west door is Saxon work and the most interesting item in the church. A little further away is King's Worthy, with an uninteresting and rebuilt Perpendicular church in a pretty spot on the banks of the Itchen.
Among his renowned deeds were those he performed against the Saracens, and also his slaughter of an enormous dragon. The extensive docks at the mouth of the river Itchen, to the east of the town, have, of course, greatly increased its wealth. We saw a magnificent foreign-bound steamer coming out of the docks.
The West India ships start from here, as do other lines of steamers running to the Cape, and to various parts of the world; so that Southampton is a bustling seaport. There is another river to the west of the town, called the Test; and that joining with the Itchen at the point where the town is built, forms the beautiful Southampton Water.
"Here is a hole in the side two ells across, the sail split through the centre, and the wood as bare as a friar's poll. In good sooth, I know not what I shall say to Master Witherton when I see the Itchen once more." "By St. Paul! it would be a very sorry thing if we suffered you to be the worse of this day's work," said Sir Nigel.
It seems a place where no worldly thought, no pride, or passion, or irreverence could enter; a spot where, as a modern writer has beautifully expressed it, a good man, might he make his choice, would wish to die." The country around this beautiful city by the Itchen is full of quiet charm, for life's ever-changing drama has but one and the same background.
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