PICTURE the scene: It's Christmas Day in Victorian Southampton and anyone strolling past the houses in Bugle Street would have probably heard the sound of a piano and singing coming from Old Palace House.

Today it is better known as the Tudor House Museum but in those days it was home for anything up to three different families who lived in various parts of the building.

The middle section belonged to Mr J George Poole, a well known local architect, and his family.

He had been married twice and his first wife was known for her beauty but she was to die at an early age, although there were five children from the marriage. Later he married again, and in the second family there were 16.

Such large families were by no means uncommon in Victorian times but this made for the grand total of 21 children in all.

So big parties were a familiar part of life at Old Palace House as relatives, ranging from young children upwards through married sons and daughters to the head of the family, the grandfather himself, gathered especially at Christmas.

The traditional festive dinner was cooked in the basement kitchen where Christmas meals had been prepared for centuries, although in the Middle Ages it had been on street level.

"Mr Poole, as the Victorian papa and grandpa, sat at the head of the board," recalls the family records from the time.

"He was a dignified, retiring personage, yet with a typical Victorian sense of his position as head of the family.

"There was a blazing fire on the hearth; on the table, turkey, roast beef, Christmas pudding, mince pies and the rest of the traditional festive fare.

"Overhead and on the walls, amid the flickering shadows from the fire, hung the holly and mistletoe. Everything was comfort and jollity, the head of the family unbending and presently allowing the children to romp and play, which was sometimes forbidden on less convivial occasions."

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After dinner a large box full of presents was brought in and parcels were handed out to all at the party.

"When the excitement of the presents had simmered down the music, games and dancing began, there being a piano in the room," says the history book.

"It was a tradition that old Mr Poole should sing.

He possessed what at one time had been a good tenor voice, and even in his old age he could sing well the songs that had been the favourites of his youth.

"There was Tom Bowling while another song he was fond of was Come into the Garden Maude. Then the company enjoyed the popular dances of the period, the gallop, the waltz, the polka; while the children played all the Christmas games such as musical chairs, hunt-the-slipper, postman's knock, blind-man's-bluff and charades.

"Then came the close, the finale of wrapping up against the cold night air outside and the promises of future Christmas reunions."

These days all this has passed into Southampton's history and as the Victorian song, the Poole family would have probably known, asks: "Where is now the merry party I remember long ago, Laughing round the Christmas fire, Brightened by its ruddy glow?"

The sad answer lies in the following verse: "They have all dispersed and wandered Far away, far away."