This French Street merchant's house near Southampton's old town wall dates from about 1290, among the earliest of its kind still standing in England
John Fortin, who made his money trading wine from Bordeaux, built the house around 1290 on French Street, then one of the grandest addresses in a Southampton grown rich on continental trade, close to the wall that kept the town safe from raids by sea. It doubled as home, workshop and shop, with a stone-vaulted cellar, known as an undercroft, built beneath it to keep wine barrels at a steady, cool temperature.
The house survived largely intact through centuries of changing use — divided into cottages, then run as a public house — until a German bombing raid in 1940 stripped away later additions and revealed the medieval building underneath. English Heritage restored the house during the 1980s to look much as it would have in the mid-14th century, and dressed the rooms with replica furniture to show how a merchant’s household would have lived and worked.
It’s a short walk from Southampton’s surviving stretch of town wall and close enough to Southampton Central station to visit as part of a day exploring the old town. English Heritage opens the house on set days, seasonally.
