ONCE there was only one place to go for a good Saturday night out in Southampton – East Street.

Difficult to imagine these days, but East Street was the in place.

It had a unique personality. People were attracted in hordes to throng round the collection of small specialist shops, pubs and cinemas that once packed this historic part of Southampton.

Perhaps it is difficult to picture those past days, but way back before the Second World War, in East Street’s heyday, it was said you could walk all the way “from All Saints’ Church to St Mary’s on the tops of people’s heads”.

East Street was a magnet for Saturday evening shoppers looking for a bargain, milling crowds under the glare of naptha lamps over the butcher’s shop, where a Sunday joint could be had for a few pence, and hawkers’ barrows which, at weekends, would be strung out along almost the whole length of the street, the dealers all vying with each other for customers.

According to one description: “Here were a dozen tailors and almost as many boot shops, eight grocers, seven confectioners, six butchers, six outfitters, four watch-makers, three bakers, besides furnishers, chemists, drapers, wallpaper sellers, dyers and cleaners, fishmongers, costumiers, oil men, leather merchants, umbrella sellers, photographers, cycle merchants, toy dealers, a pawnbroker, a post office, stonemen and a blacksmith in his forge. In addition there were seven pubs, two cinemas, an early Woolworth’s and at one time even a Marks & Spencer’s bazaar with nothing over a penny.”

Without doubt the greatest store was Edwin Jones, established in the late 1850s and which went on to become a local institution.

A collection of smaller streets, including The Ditches with its own collection of tiny businesses, running off East Street, all added to the character of the place.

The heart of the area was ripped out by German bombers during the Second World War, properties destroyed, shops razed to the ground – so much lost.

For years grass and wild flowers grew across the rubble that was the only reminder of those earlier happy days.