ONE of Victorian Southampton’s most remarkable mansions was West Gate House, which occupied a prime site near the old West Quay.

Amazingly, it stood on both sides of the old town wall, which literally bisected it to form part of the inner structure. In fact, one of the archways in the medieval wall served as an alcove in one of the rooms!

The mansion—which became popularly known as Madame Maes’ House after its long-term owner — overlooked the water on one side and faced Cuckoo Lane on the other.

It was a private home until the turn of the century, when the Corporation bought it prior to construction of the road between the West Quay and the Royal Pier, but it was subsequently demolished some years later. In a pre-war letter written to the Echo some 30 or 40 years after its demolition, there were still people in the town with great memories of the building.

One of them, W. F. Gubbins, remembered the old mansion from regular childhood visits to West Gate House with his mother, who had worked in service there before her marriage.

Mr Gubbins, who lived in Millbrook Road, wrote: “The house itself was built on to the present wall on either side, the front portion, facing the sea, being three storey, and the back, to the east of the wall, being one storey, on the level of the second storey of the front, and facing Cuckoo Lane.

“There was a carriage drive, and the front part of the house commenced just a few yards north of the first projection of the present walls. “This was only an entrance by staircase to the back portion of the house, and the old walls had a handrail fixed into them.”

He estimated that the kitchen garden — separated by a hedge from the rest of the grounds — extended to the site of the Stella monument, erected in 1901, a year or two after the house was taken over, “As to the back portion, Cuckoo Lane was only a very narrow passageway all through,” said Mr Gubbins.

“Madame Maes’ property extended from the steps leading to the West Gate to the entrance to Stevens’ boatyard.”

The Guard Room was within the grounds and was the playroom for the children, with swings attached to the old beams and rocking horses. The front garden of West Gate House led down to the sea wall, which was six or seven feet high.”

Mr Gubbins also had fond memories of the mansion’s Victorian owner, Madame Maes, whose philanthropic deeds were legendary.

“She was very generous to the poor in Simnel Street and the various courtyards in and around St Michael’s parish,” he recalled. Madame Maes also ran a private library, available free of charge to parishioners.

Another pre-war Echo reader, Mr W Burrough Hill, remembered attending a children’s party at West Gate House more than 80 years before. He likened the premises to a fairyland—“with its attractive garden by the side of the sea, where the rippling silver waves glistened, studded with white wing sails that appeared never to grow weary as they passed the village by the sea”.

A well-known feature of the garden was a mulberry tree thought to be about 300 years old. On another visit a few years later, Mr Hill found himself tempted by its “luscious fruit”.

Many years later, at the equally ripe age of 90, Mr Hill returned to the site of West Gate House.

To his dismay he found that virtually nothing remained of the paradise of his youth, apart from the felled trunk of the mulberry.

With the borough surveyor’s permission, he arranged for its removal and handed out pieces to his friends around Southampton.

“The wood is still as sound as a bell and of a strong yellowish colour,” he said.

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