SOUTHAMPTON’S beginnings are deeply rooted yet its development into one of the country’s most important maritime centres dates from comparatively recent times.

Historical inference is that the first Southampton was a small, primitive settlement protected from marauders by a stockade ditch.

When the Romans came to Britain they built their town within a bend of the River Itchen.

Hamwith, the later Saxon settlement on the other side of the river, was an unhealthy spot, frequently plundered and ravaged by the Danes. Then came the Norman Conquest and the town was rebuilt with a circle of protective walls on the western side of the land between the Test and Itchen.

For centuries, until the beginning of the spa period, when Southampton became a flourishing watering place, there were few dwelling places beyond the walls.

The Southampton of 1801, in the words of a local guidebook, “enjoyed a situation in every respect eligible; it being beautiful, healthy and commodious for commerce.”

Principal street in the town for trade was the High Street. Many of its shops were said to rival in elegance those of London.

The population had increased. At this time it was nearly 8,000.

On the outskirts of the town wealthy folk had built dignified country residences.

Steam vessels had added considerably to the improvement of the town, both in trade and tourist traffic between Southampton, the Isle of Wight and the Channel Islands.

A resident wrote at the time: “The situation of Southampton is so admirably adapted for trade that a rapid increase continues to be made every year and should the contemplated railway to the metropolis be prosecuted with success there is little doubt that this port will be equal to any for expedition and cheapness.”

In 1859 the town’s population had increased to more than 45,000. This was due to the then extensive docks and to its rapidly rising importance as a station for foreign mails and first-class steam ships.

The town area in these days consisted of about 2,000 acres of land and the neighbourhood was still studded with “handsome seats and neat villages and hamlets.”

There were six parishes in the borough, St Mary’s, All Saints, St Lawrence, St John, Holy Rood, St Michael and Portswood Tything. St Mary’s comprised more than half of the borough and its population had tripled.

New streets and long ranges of “handsome suburban villas” now extended far beyond the walled town.

They stretched northward to Northam, Newtown, Bevois Valley, Bellevue and Bannisters and north-west to Blechynden and Fourposts, formerly a small village near the borough boundary.

Beyond it there was a “handsome and populous suburb” on the Freemantle and Shirley estates in the parish of Millbrook.

About 60 acres of the common fields, Hoglands, Houndwell and the Marlands, had been planted and laid out for the free use of the townsfolk. Beyond them was a long avenue of elms leading to the Common, which contained a race course, cemetery and waterworks reservoirs.

The docks consisted by this time of two large docks, three graving docks and an extensive range of warehouses.

Another contributory factor to the “boom” was the coming of the London and South-Western Railway. This line ran through to the old Terminus Station and a branch from it went on to Dorchester and Weymouth, with a station at Blechynden - now Southampton Central.

The growth of the town and the expansion of the docks continued throughout the years up to the start of the First World War.

In 1890 Queen Victoria visited to open the new 18-and-a-half acre Empress Dock.

By the opening of this dock Southampton became the only port in the country at which vessels of the deepest draught could enter or leave at any state of the tide.