Southampton Graffiti

Some Memorable Southampton Graffiti etc.

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On Weston foreshore,one letter to each paving stone so the only way to view the whole script was from one of the tall blocks on International Way.
It read something like:
LOOK OUT BEYOND YOU AND SEE THE SHIT THAT YOU HAVE CREATED
The vista on the other side of Southampton Water consists of Fawley refinery and the associated Hythe chemical works.

On the footpath alongside the railway between the Civic Centre and the Central Railway Station a long time ago
BAN THE CALL-UP
DJ and JT

On the end of a terrace of run down housing in Eastgate St in the late 60s
IF THE LUFTWAFFE DOESN'T GET YOU THE COUNCIL WILL
DJ

In the 1980's the City Council in their infinite wisdom had a road safety car sticker made which read 'SLOW DOWN, THIS IS SOUTHAMPTON'. Most I knew took it as a sign that any radical change was still a long way off. - RM

My favourite was 1970s on the wall of the underpass between Bellvue Rd and St Mary's Road. A slight vestige of this remained till the sites total demise in 2003.
In one hand someone had written:
BAN BEEFBURGERS and by another hand underneath:
WITH FRAYED EDGES by repute the second part written by the leading light of the then local listings sheet of that name.

Later on the same site SPARKY F***S SNAILS AND OTHER MOLLESQUES
Exact spelling of molluscs JT, and spelling confirmed by A.M.
There is another curiosity concerning this area. The pedestrian rampway is flag-stoned. After rain the water collects under some of these flags. Then if someone unknowingly treads on these flags in just the wrong place the slab rocks and a jet of water shoots up their fundament. Sadly no more this subway was filled-in during June 2003.

Above a shop window at 59 or 60 Oxford St,Soton a sign used to be
INVISIBLE MENDERS
Whenever I went past it I never did in fact see anyone in there.

The following remains in place,decades on,partially overgrown and adulterated. On Mansbridge Rd on the original end of Allington Lane now called Romill Close near Gaters Mill. It reads , apparently 1968 vintage.
LONG LIVE DUBCEK
Acknowledgement to T.W.,I.H, C.M, A.M., A.J. , JT, PJ ,AG and PC

Dubcek 1

All that is now visible summertime, pictures taken June 2004, is LO.. .... ..BCEK
And a close up of ..BCEK of Dubcek
Dubcek 2

A claimant for this "classic" piece of graffiti ? which has the ring of truth about it from The Echo 18/05/2000 .
From a local councillor; when the owners had plans to demolish the wall as part of a redevelopement this graffiti was another ground for refusal of planning permission to demolish the wall.

On the Horseshoe bridge,St Denys MOONACRE FUZZ IN BELIEF FOR NATURAL ORANGE
P.J
Incidently the sign at the gate for the "Alan Jones Memorial Steps" leading down to "St Denys Beach" didn't last long. Has anyone else noticed the line of (methane ?) bubbles along the line of the sheet piling placed parallel to the railway and new path at St Denys Beach? . For anyone who wants to complain about the non-completion of that project (large pebble /small rocks to try and walk on and "temporary" beach covering) the contact detail is apparently complaints@southampton.gov.uk. ( now snagged up with involvement with Sustrans and widening to cycle path ). I assume they've punctured the peat bed layer mentioned in the Bog Bodies geology page later on. http://www.geog.port.ac.uk/webmap/itchen/proposal.html, more locally, has reference to peat underlying the River Itchen.

Subway between the Central Hall and East St
WHY WORRY
D.J
In this same subway,the four letters,each drawn out very long so just the four letters covered the length of the subway.
FFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKK
Difficult to describe in a text file T.W

This graffiti appeared over night in many spots in the city. I think the longest version was
Hari and Al Weston 76
and was on the subway wall between the Royal Oak pub and St Mary's Street and also on one of the pillars of the old swimming baths where it stayed until their demolition. there was no context to the graffiti but the fact that it seemed to be everywhere impressed us. - TN

Some official graffiti at the junction of Banister Rd and Court Rd, September 2007

On a long since demolished co-op building on the corner of Compton Walk and St Mary's Rd:
I WILL HAUNT THESE STATE Don't ask me ,I've no idea what it means.
From DL - "I WILL HAUNT THESE STATE " is possibly a reference to the same graffiti which I remember from various locations in London in the mid-70s. The author signed himself as Joseph, always used white paint and interspersed the "I WILL HAUNT THESE STATE" with anti-abortion slogans.
Also on the same building:
PEOPLE BEFORE PROFIT
I.H

On Northam Road railway bridge in one hand: ABORTION A WOMAN’S RIGHT TO CHOOSE
Then in another hand underneath:
SATAN
I.H
From JB: I used to live on Northam Rd and I’m sure the graffiti on the bridge when it appeared read …”A WOMENS RIGHT TO CHOOSE” - obviously an English student ! I’m sure I’ll revisit the site for nostalgic reasons again.

Assuming the following is a succinct analysis of the public perceptions of 4 letter words I have dropped my usual policy of asterisking.
This one was from the mid 1980's. On a building in St Mary Street
FUCK THE POPE
Next day someone with some sensitivity had blanked out the offending word so that it now read
FUCK THE ****
G

Seeing the head knocked off the statue of Margaret Thatcher recently reminded me of the following. In East Park there is a statue to Richard Andrews 1798-1859 who many years ago suffered the indignity of having his nose knocked off by someone. (Whoever repaired his nose did a good job of concealing the join but could have etched it to pockmark to match the remaining 1.5 centuries of acid rain .) To add to the indignity someone obviously took it upon themselves to climb up and place a litter bin over his head ,perhaps 20 feet off the ground,so it looked more of a statue of Ned Kelly. Whenever the parkies removed the bin ,the next night it would return again.
leaning tower of Bitterne Triangle

Concerning another Southampton monument: The Leaning Tower of Bitterne Triangle, the Bitterne Park Triangle clocktower.
August 2002 I crudely (no theodolite so accuracy only to plus or minus an inch) surveyed the tilt. Using a plumbob ,by sighting, the tilt towards the river was 2 foot 1 inches out of vertical. The string of the bob sighted down the middle of the brown marble pillar and measurement scaled to represent intercept at ground level. In the picture the overlaid red line from the yellow plumb-bob is extented to the top-knot with seagull and compare to the overlaid centre-line. The shod feet of my beautiful assistant are 10.5 inches long. Picture taken 17 July 2004. Lean measured in April 2005 was 1 foot 11 inches. Lean measured on 10 Sept 2005 it it has lurched to 2 foot 4 inches, 12 Nov 2005 2 foot 3 inches, Feb 18,2006 lurched towards the river by now 2 ft 6 inches, in the drought on 20 July 2006, 2 foot 3 inches. A nice still morning , 5 November, 2006 and the lean is now 2 foot 7 inches. That was with extra care in measuring. Near windless day, long stick as a steady and a small bucket to protect the plum-bob from any wind. An indepenent measurement by an estate agent surveyor with an improvised plumbob, on 30 June 2007, determined the lean to be 660mm (2 foot 2 inches ). 30 March, 2008 lean increased back to 2 foot 7 inches. Ah well some way to go before that line is near to passing outside the base let alone the centre of gravity passing outside the base. Incidently near this area , in the foreground of the below pic, the lattice of blobs , the remnants of the Roman causeway, pier or jetty behind about 142 Priory Rd, near Collier Close. I have a copy of the Mark Beattie - Edwards survey of the site. Postcode SO172HS, SU433137, about lat 50:55:15N long 01:23:00W.

Dendro-dated to 201 AD (source HWTMA ) , so survived 1800 years so far, amazing this mud stuff. Considering a 100 foot long Rhine barge carrying shit from the sewage works to dump off the Nab Tower passes a matter of 20 feet from this spot most days.
Because of the phenominal number of contacts in october 2006 (over-hyped flood warnings) and total lack of marine flooding/ tidal info on the internet, it would seem, all the tidal stuff much enlarged, that was here, is now at the end of this file.

A contributee would like to know the wording of the long term graffitti on the subway from London Rd to Cranbury Place refering to TAXES.From SC.

There follows a few infamous local road signs etc.

The all time classic is the official sign in East St directing people to the nearest toilets:
NEAREST TOILETS BACK OF THE WALLS (Back of the Walls is the name of a road)

In public lift in the civic centre.
On the door to the emergency telephone
DO NOT PANIC Open the door and the phone had been ripped out,on the panel behind was written
NOW PANIC
P.J

An undergraduate first going to an archaeology course in the then new Arts 2 block in 1968 at Southampton University. He uses the lift there and curious as to what was behind the little door marked "Emergency Phone" found nothing inside not even where a phone could have been connected. 25 years later he goes back for a reunion ,uses the same lift and yes still no sign of any phone.
P.C.

Since the 1980s the local council has been trying to shift the prostitutes out of the red light area and disrupting local roads to deter kerb crawlers.
To help this they have laid "sleeping policeman" in the roads.Then they have placed numerous information signs around this area directing the johns into the red-light district with the very explicit statement:
HUMPS FOR HALF A MILE
In the top left of this rather snatched photo
Southampton Prostitute and Kerb Crawler

Picture taken corner of Onslow Rd and Denzil Avenue,Southampton
Humps for ½ mile

A Slight Diversion

Set in the floor of the New Inn,Bevois Valley under the darts mat.
FRANK ANDREWS FELL HERE WHILE ON DUTY 14-3-82
On a 4 by 2 inch brasss plaque. This was during John and Mo's incumbency. The duty was propping up the bar until there was one of those quirky gravity waves that you get in public houses.

Another pub curiosity. A pub portrait of the Junction Inn, St Denys, taken in July 1947 associated with a day out to Kempton Races

The picture hanging in the lounge of the pub is much clearer than this photo would suggest. It is in a dark corner of the pub and a glass covering. The names of the regulars are on the back of the picture. Shame Ainsley did not do the same for the Junction Pub regulars portraits of 1970s, 80s, 90s and 00s also on the same wall of the lounge. Far more women (genuine or faux) in the later portraits. For anyone recognising any of the names transcribed from the back of the 1947 picture they will have to visit the pub to take a closer look. It still has some of the Victorian features and in the 1970s the bottle & jug door was opened in the afternoons to sell sweets to kids. An excellent way to annoy the management in those days was to buy your beer at 2p less a pint in the Public Bar and take it round to the lounge. I have no knowledge and no-one locally now seems to have any connection with any of those portrayed. The most intriguing individual is the eighth from the left in the front row, a man in drag, not alluded to on the reverse.
Transcribed names etc
The boy on the balcony is Mick Baker (landlord's son)
Front Row (from left) - Nobby Silverthorn, Nobby Parsons, Nobby Rogers, Bert Terry, Mrs Baker (landlady), Percy Ruddock, Sonner Parsons, Jack Kirk, Jack Davis, ?, Mr Wain, Jerry Dibben, Mr Philpott
Back Row - Hants & Dorset bus driver, Frank Baker, Charlie Andrews, Norman Turner, Frank Read, George Wain, Peter Baker (landlord), George Scott, George Martin, Joe Parsons, Mr White, Mr Holt / Martin ?, Harry Smith, Percy Annett, Jack
In 2007 an interesting survey plan of St Dennis (sic) has appeared on the wall, not dated but after the South Western Railway line was built but before the Portsmouth branchline added , before St Denys station and before Cobden Bridge was built (first opening 27 June 1883, second one 25 Oct, 1928). With just prospective roads for the area for a land sale conducted by an Ellistons of 149 High St, Southampton and surveyed by a Mr Deswell. Also in 2007 the old Commer ? van is still hidden in the garden next to the railway. The landlord, Alan Mitchell, in the 1970s put it there for reason now forgotten and not removed for curse or whatever placed on it, 3 decades later, does anyone remember the background to this odd event. ?

A ground level ,concrete graffiti, in Hanover Buildings 10 yards back to Queensway from the High St junction scrawled in wet cement
RADIO CAROLINE

And to keep JT happy another "Radio Caroline " in a concrete strip outside 24 High St around the corner.

A 'drycleaner' with concerns for sprogladytes under the Brunswick rooms gospel church, 13 Osborne Road South, St Denys. Photo taken Dec 2004
Painted on a drain cover - Zoe
REPLACE SCREWS FOR SAFETY OF CHILDREN

In the 70s on a large sign fixed to the wall of the South Western Arms pub,St Denys
LIVE PIANO AT THE WEEKENDS
A quirk with this pub is its somehow acquired a Portsmouth Corporation lamp post in the car park. 2007, the "witch" is still suspended in the apex of the roof space. Hercules, the pub cat , has been transfered to the fourth set of pub managers, 2007, written into the contract of transfer.

The best behaved denizen of the South Western Arms - no swearing , no dirty jokes - sitting on his favourite bar-stool. Pics taken with available light - well I don't like being on the receiving end of camera flashes in pubs. Hercules

There was a bakers in Queensway that for some years had the perspex shop sign above the premises proclaiming:
HIGH GLASS CONFECTIONERS

A sign on a tattooist's shop on Portswood Road (near the junction with Lodge Road)
EAR PIERCING WHILE YOU WAIT
KW
The alternative is too horrific to contemplate.

The following 2 references are in memory of East Park Terrace lecturer Alan Lawrence now passed on (reporter only not culprit)
Dotted around the college in East Park Terrace there used to be anthropomorphic signs saying
THESE PREMISES ARE ALARMED

In the 70s this college was called Southampton College of Technology ,in the 80s it merged with Warsash Navigation College and a more regional name was deemed appropriate. The name chosen was South Hants Institute of Technology and duly forwarded on to the Winchester education committee to ratify but someone there noticed what the acronym spelt out. It became plain boring Southampton Institute instead. I see the Simpsons hometown has a Springfield Heights Institute of Technology also.

There used to be a door at Bolderwood Medical School that the sign was removed from so often ,by medical students,that it had to be almost welded to the door,it read
PROFESSOR OF HUMAN REPRODUCTION

Twenty odd years ago there was a poster campaign for Brain's faggots ( processed offal formed into meatballs) some of these posters were placed on the ends of bus shelters. One such shelter was outside the Merchant Navy Hotel at Stag Gates,Lodge Rd. The caption on the poster read:
GIVE A FAGGOT A GOOD HOME

An old wall painting advertising from 1940s/50s emerged in 2007 on the wall of the Triangle Boatyard , Bitterne Triangle. Had been covered by a billboard frame for decades. Ekco

In a similar but more agricultural vein. For years I have seen a van going round town proudly displaying on the sides
DYKE SERVICES

A local engineer parked his works van in the street. Little did he know he had parked opposite a prostitute's house. On his return the woman confronted him requesting him to regularly park it there. The company name on the side read
COMPLETE GRINDING SERVICES
JH

A vacuum cleaner repair shop Spencers on the corner of Rigby Rd and Portswood Rd,(now Zoe/Sim's coffee house) had the following sign in the window.
WE SERVICE GOBLINS
JW
Goblin being a manufacturer's name

I recently came across a posting concerning the comedian Benny Hill's house at 22 Westrow Gardens,Southampton and no memorial to this local comic. Someone out of all the world's comedians who managed to start a riot at a USA prison . The warders had changed association time to a different slot and the inmates could not watch the Benny Hill show on the prison TV. It reminded me that i had associated a strange,very narrow, little shop in St Mary St with Benny. It principally supplied bulk stocks of condoms for ship's crews in the docks. I remembered the proprietor as "Old Ma Hill" and thought she had a family connection with Benny Hill. Now being familiar with the local archives i researched this. The shop was near the original "Homebrews" shop but at 51 St Mary St ,euphemistically selling "medical supplies" proprietor R . Hills in 1974. Unlikely for Hills to have any connection with Hill so unfounded. I checked records for 22 Westrow Gardens in 1964 Helen F Hill and Alfred H Hill,1979 and 1987 Alfred H Hill. The last time I made a pilgrimage to Westrow Gardens there was still no plaque of any sort. A local wag had ammended a nearby roadsign reading Hill Lane to read Benny Hill Lane . As far as I know this is the only recognition of a local noteable. May 2006 there was local media mention of a statue to Benny appearing somewhere, maybe Eastleigh though. The council will only recognize the likes of R J Mitchell (Spitfire designer) not such onetime residents as Benny Hill ,Ken Russell , Tommy Cooper or Danny La Rue.

There is a new department of Southampton University on University Road the main sign outside proudly says:
SCHOOL OF NURSING AND MIDWIFERY
DELIVERIES AT REAR
AK

Graffiti has moved on a bit too. At the end of Regents Park Road there are little triangular stickers (professionally printed by the look of it) stuck on to the permanent traffic cones next to the traffic lights (the ones with the blue circle and white arrows on) they read simply, KONART. (Cone-art) - RM

I hand over now to an AM2 with his remembered graffiti and his comments and photos for the next 4 or so items

Just come across the site. Very fine. Can I tell you some of my favourites (now mostly gone but perhaps preservable here)?

Pedestrian underpass going under Central Bridge Road, south of Chantry Road. Early 1980s. A fan had covered one whole wall with ELLA FITZGERALD IS GREAT. Very neat and large capitals, must have taken ages. A refreshing change from the usual.

South corner of Earls Road and Bevois Valley Road. There used to be a small terrace of houses, demolished and turned into a carpark. The two-poster site was put up at the same time (mid 1970s). It carried the usual warning, "Anyone defacing this poster will be prosecuted". Very shortly afterwards, someone had painted out the last two words and added a few so that the warning then read "Anyone defacing this poster WILL HAVE THEIR HOUSE KNOCKED DOWN AND REPLACED WITH A HOARDING". An inspired defacement, I thought.

Ghetto

Photo taken St Mark's Terrace 1990s
"THANK YOU FOR MY GHETTO"
[ 'Thank you for my ghetto' one was part of a series attributable to VOT, which stands for Voices of Treason, a local band with an arguably enlightened sense of self publicity. - RM ]

Station Rd Café

One time café in Station Rd behind Gaumont/Mayflower Theatre 07 April 1998 in Brave New World fashion
"WORK HARDER / BUY MORE / HAPPINESS JUST AROUND THE CORNER"
Station Rd Café

Another ear-piercing site: the now-demolished tattoo parlour in Northam Road, just north of St Mary Street, used in the 1980s to advertise EAR PIERCING SATURDAYS. Must have held good parties.

I, too, remember the Invisible Menders in Oxford Street. From when I remember them (very late 1970s and much of the 1980s), the shop was shut up and the windows covered in boards.

Obviously in a desperate attempt to disappear ,photo taken June 1982 Oxford Street.

Lastly, a telling piece of graffiti I read on the urinal wall of the gents in the Bay Tree (as was; who knows what it's called now?) around 1980. Somebody had written some post-hippy gibberish about all being one. A second person added the words, I KNOW WHAT YOU MEAN. BUT I DON'T UNDERSTAND YOU. On reflection, in its choice of words it was probably more telling 20 years ago. - AM2

And to another AM, AM3
At Northam it was "Abortion, a women's right to choose" (definitely the plural but there may not have been an apostrophe).

By the station it was "Cut the call up" (not "Ban", and the absence of a hyphen allowed for creative misinterpretation).

The Bedford Hotel (Bedford Place) underwent a major makeover many years ago, including the addition of some large, painted advertising high on a side wall. Amongst other more prosaic offerings was advertised "Cooled Largers", presumably to reduce the swelling.

At Four Post Hill there was a road sign that warned drivers to beware of "Mereging Traffic". I couldn't identify such an activity, and therefore always approached this area on the edge of paranoia (me, not the area).

And do you remember The Junction's outside gents' toilet, inside which was inscribed "Biggs", just that, but to which was later appended "But not Biggs enough"? AM3

Just thought I would share a particularly good quote from the wall in the gents at the Hobbit pub.
I'D GIVE MY RIGHT PENIS TO BE NORMAL
G P

While on topic of pub toilets. Named after the fisherman's gear store ,the Seaweed Hut, on Weston Foreshore the nearby pub was named the Seaweed Inn . The toilets in this pub were labelled
HE-WEED and SHE-WEED

In the antediluvian bogs (or rather post-diluvian - yellow version) of Leg-ends (ex Stoneham Inn) pub in Bevois Valley. A proper (for the Stoneham ) sign on the bog wall. Then, later, presumably a drunk painter could not keep the shit-brown paint on the woodwork and part painted over it. Too small a bog to photograph straight on - all very sordid. ( AM2 and AK )
NOW WASH YOUR FEET

On the common in the 70s on the exterior face of the brickwall of a toilet block infamous for cottaging. Painted in large letters in mirror writing the way Ambulance is written back to front on the front of the ambulance just in case the driver in front of it does not register that a big object bearing down on him with flashing blue lights and blaring sirens is not an ambulance. The script looked something like the following sureality - A.G.
Bog Script

To my shame I remember seeing this writing on the wall but dismissed it as random gibberish. I walked straight past having failed to recognise what may be the most inspired and surreal grafffitti ever - Doh!

If you leave Soton railway station on the north side, just before the exit is a sign indicationg the exit (if you see what I mean). It reads:
WAY OUT
TOILETS
just like that, one above the other. Some wag sprayed man below the words...it didnt stay ther long, and was removed after about three weeks. - LS

As you turn the corner from St Mary's Road into the top end of Onslow Rd was a shop Danaan (now October Books) with a big window sign - LS
RECYCLED TOILET PAPER

A comment from Ken Higham of Manchester for those against graffiti:
"Why not sign a partition"

Contributions from Alys
I enjoyed your collection of little bits of street history.
Here are my additions:

FIND PAUL MILES at the Bellevue Road end of Onslow Road-Bellevue Road subway from early 90s

SI**N HADDON IS A COPPER'S NARK in Kingsland Market late 80s/early 90s

RIO IS A THIEF Portswood High St near Safeway mid 90s

LE GOD FOR ENGLAND when Le Tiss was being overlooked

fly posters reading F**K WORK, LET'S ROCK and HEY KIDS, LET'S ROCK around Polygon, London Road, ABC cinema 94 or 95

and another flyposter with a mugshot of a guy in shades holding a board with writing in Spanish, about the same time, Onslow Road.

The Broadway Cinema Gribbles, Portswood
Now a bingo hall but this reminder of the onetime queues around the block , when it was a cinema. Grinding into the soft bricks with coins

and on the other side Broadway Cinema

and continuing around the rear you can see from the Iceland car park.
In Carlton Crescent behind No 8. In its history it must have been part of Ordnance Survey, Southampton. The rear wall of the building is covered in probably thousands of benchmarks. Trainee surveyors must have used the wall to practise chiselling these marks used as reference points in followup surveys. I recently checked behind this building and it has been rendered over and this array of carvings is buried ,presumably ,never to be seen again.

Few references to the OS having been at that site, one seems to be what looks like a grave in front of the Crown Courts marking a Fundamental Bench Mark number 7435, TP0541 primary trig point or perhaps a disguised manhole. Grid reference SU 42074 12802 , apparently 74.3510 above chart datum Newlyn , the original height in ft has been blocked off with a bolted brass plate. Is that because the reference point is different, more accuracy or Southampton is sinking ? The height of that BM on a 1910 map was recorded as 75.6 ft. The 1878 map also records it as 75.6 with the sort of odd info that you don't see on OS maps these days "Roman coins found here". Despite being ancient it now has a nasty modern plastic plate addition saying it is part of the National GPS Network, now thats what I call a geostationary orbit.

In the Maritime Museum,at end of French Street inside the building in the upper levels there are the names of French internees during presumably the war of Spanish Succession. Some I could make out were MARIE TANGRE in roof-truss timberwork above the West wall

? THOMA: and date perhaps, but like all these scripts need oblique lighting and a pair of steps to read them decently, this time on a cross beam at South end.
thoma

FRANCOIS DRIE
THOMAS LAIS
on one stone and
N 1711 ( the 7 is shaped like the right half of a letter M ) presumably the date Novembre 1711 on the stone beneath it in the surround of a window in the West wall
1711

Also downnstairs near the main entrance is another stone that may be reset upside down with some more indistinct script ? AKOV?
Akov

In Tudor House Museum,Southampton.
There is grafiti in the attic courtesy of ARP observers during the war.
In the "ship room" there is scratched onto the plaster ships,ropework and rabbits. Also preserved there but transferred from the attic of the Banqueting Hall a plaster scratchwork dated to about 1750. This is of a two deck,three masted ship with admiralty pattern anchor and chain and Union Flag. From the Echo 6/9/2007 a carpenter's beef, carp carved on a wooden beam
"1936 Fed up beer 7d a pint" signed L. Sykes and J. White
Beer had last risen in price 14 years previously, negative inflation ove rthat tiome apparently

Behind Tudor House Museum on Western Esplanade is an intriguing piece of brick wall. It is about 30 yards from where Blue Anchor Lane emerges and looks like it belongs to the de Vere Grand Harbour Hotel .
American Wall and Hotel

An interesting piece of wall in its own right. Five foot 6 inch high soft orange brick with a coping of glazed semicircular blue-black bricks and a string course of tiles.
Scratched into the brickwork are the names of American service personel stationed over here during the war. The official "politically correct" record is they were killing time waiting to embark for D-Day. From local oral history the wall was part of a VD clinic for American services personel which agrees better with one of the dates scratched being 1941 and another 1937. I hope the days of sanitized versions of history are gone and we can now have a "warts and all" truer reflection of all events. This wall needs attention to halt further deterioration of the spalling (frost damage) surface of the brickwork and the carving with it. In a sense the two year old growth of ivy flopping over from the other side is protecting from frost but will soon start rooting into the brickwork and longer fronds in the wind will abraid. If anyone ,particularly in the States with relatives who served in Britain during the war would like to contact me to have a photographic survey / conservation of this wall it will give me more clout when I make representations to Southampton Council or whoever owns this wall . I will take it upon myself to monitor this ivy etc.It is such a tangible memorial to fraternal links across the pond that I am sure justifies some care spent on it. If given permission to temporarily rope back the ivy for an afternoon and couple of hours at night I would photograph it myself. There are probably another 15 names hidden too indistinct to make out or lost from frost damage etc.The clearest is shown in this picture is that of Mr Eatherington.
American Wall - close-up

So some of the names still very readable:
W. E. SHIRK
Wm MUELLER
CLEMTATIO
JOE HAMMOND
H. L. EATHERINGTON - ZION
ROBERT M. RAY AND DAVE RAY OHIO
ROBERT GOLDEN
Geo FABER OF COLO.
JAMES HENLEY
LAWRENCE MATHIS 1941 DEC 23
JAMES ?DES PENNY
VIRRLA PENNY
CALAVERY AMER??D CHICAGO ILLINOIS
F. F. JOHNSON USA
JOE N. JONES DEC 22 1944
D. W. SMITH
J. C. KELLOE
CHARSTON S.C.
BILLIE WILSON
P W ?AAL
RALPH ODEL
J L PLIEL
JONY JOHNSTON
BILL ?URBAN
W KNIGHT

And on the small, reconstructed patch, of wall behind from bricks from a demolished section of this wall in jumbled order
M P CARTER AUG 44
M J WOMPON FEB 45
? F RECINE
OCT 10,1944 FRANCE
P D B?EECH CATAWISSA PENNA
J C CHRISTEN?N ALDEN BOLL M???NN
G N BUNKER ? CITY IOWA
1945 BALTIMORE
EDDIE MEYER ILLINOIS 17/21/44
JOHN HELMLIIIO ELYRIA OHIO 11-4-44
DOOLING BEVERLY MASS
R FINN
J E WETTA CALLAWA MIAMI FLORIDA
LAB RY MT NC
ED C??BA??K
BOUND BROOK
JO COURT
? M SLATER MAY 13 1937
VANEE
MARTIN VA
I have transcribed as best I could but some letters are deteriorated and indistinct and I may have confused names and places also later repointing has lost part of the words. The reference to Zion is probably the place near Chicago rather than a double barrel surname.
I hope the same doesn't happen as another wall I was aware of. This wall perhaps 25 foot high in Marine Parade ,Chapel,Southampton. It was part of the gasworks but it had the only example of wartime fighter strafing bullet marks that I was aware of. It was demolished recently to build the new Southampton football club stadium.

A couple of wartime stories told to me but I've not heard confirmation of. In the Northam area near this old gasworks strafed wall. One day a german fighter was shot down but the pilot managed to bale out and landed safely in Northam Rd near a cinema that is now the area of the regional TV centre. Within a matter of minutes a number of local women had come out and had kicked him to death. No one was ever charged with this murder and all covered up. The German fighters made a habit of straffing the local streets at precisely the time local kids were making their ways home from school.
Then in a different part of Southampton not so affected by the intense efforts to knock out the Woolston Supermarine Works. Padwell Rd in the Inner Avenue area. Some bods were drinking in their local and a German fighter plane crash landed. The pilot survived but dazed. The locals dragged him out of the wreckage and stood him drinks in the pub while waiting for the relevant authorities to take him away.

I have surveyed the "American" wall. It is well worth going on one of the guided walks of the old Southampton city walls as you are let into some of the late medieval vaults along the route. From where Blue Anchor Lane emerges then 62 foot northwards along the old walls then 70 foot perpendicular across Western Esplanade is the start of the wall. It is 44 foot 6in long with a return westwards then a stone wall continues for 65 foot 6in curving slightly westwards then a westwards return.
This agrees with the 1:2500 map of 1934 and the 1:1250 map of 1948 showing a walled complex of morgue,VD clinic and another unamed building to which the wall of interest is externally associated. This anonymous building has 2 covered, maybe, veranda areas. In 1921 this building appears in Borough Engineers plans as the County Borough Disinfecting station. It is recorded as this in Kelly's including 1940. If this is it then the verandas make sense as do the mention of 2 pairs of brothers .Isolation of familial contacts for smallpox or whatever is more likely than 2 brothers getting clap from the same source.
There remains one mystery the script on the wall is on the public side of the wall not inside the enclosure.

ps e-m received 3 May,2001
Nigel,
My brother M found your web page, http://www.divdev.fsnet.co.uk/graff.htm and called me.
Our father was stationed in England during the war, H. L. Eatherington, from Zion, Illinois.
How incredible to see your picture -- of his signature on the wall, his graffiti. I hope you are successful in preserving the wall! Let us know if we can help.
F. Eatherington daughter of H. L. , and sister to M., P. and D. Eatherington
January 2002 the ivy was cut back off this wall and there is now official confirmation from the City Council that this wall in fact belongs to the hotel not the council.
To save emailed enquiries to me trying to locate this wall. On http://local.live.com/ enter postcode SO15 1AG, the graffiti wall is under the tree just to the SE of the distinctive octagonal roof of part of the hotel. Blue Anchor Lane is now only a footpath so not on maps The overlaid red circle on MAP represents roughly (centre should be other side of Bugle St) Tudor House (postcode SO14 2AD ) Museum The lane starts along the right hand wall of the museum in that pic and goes down to Blue Anchor Lane arch which is in Western Esplanade, the graffiti wall is then roughly on the opposite side of the Esplande to this archway in the medieval wall, the old wall viewed to the right through this arch encloses the tudor garden and bower behind the museum.

The Historical Mystery Explained?

I did a bit more research and have identified the building next to this wall. It was the Borough Disinfecting Station. in 1940. I have seen the 1921 engineers plans for the building and it would appear to be for disinfecting vehicles not people.

So as H.L.Eatherington was in the transport corps all the time he was in England all of his war service (information from his relatives)then the following is the most likely explanation sofar. The daughter (from the USA) of Harold L. Eatherington visited his "graffiti" on 31 March 2002. Also his son visited June , 2006.

There would have been vehicles coming from the States to the docks throughout the war not just the huge build-up for D-Day. It was probably necessary to disinfect from Colorado Beetles etc before driving to Army bases around the UK. There was no room inside the walled compound around this disinfecting station to queue up vehicles. They would have to park outside. Perhaps a tradition built up "signing " this wall while waiting in a queue for processing. If any more of the names on the wall were in the transport corps then it would be pretty good confirmation of my theory. It explains why all American names,the dates span and the outside , public side of the wall. The only slightly odd thing remaining is the reference to 2 sets of brothers names.
Canadian carved graffiti
This one in the residential part of Freemantle but as a private address then not disclosed any more than that. No one locally has the foggiest explanation for the carvings. Needs a close-up lens to photograph properly, I'll take one the next time I visit. The house was a cobblers at some point in its past. As the carvings are between 4ft 6in and 6 ft 6in off the ground and perfect spelling and almost stonemason quality carving ,very unlikely to be children. Canadian brick graffiti

Carved pictures of native Canadian raised prow fore and aft canoes and wigwams etc . Only one text seemed a bit child-like. "SILVER MINE AND GOLD MINE HIDDEN 1878 HORSEHEAD MONTAIN" There was even some script that looked runic the up-arrow for "t", inverted Y for "c" , single S of the nazi SS symbol of "i umlaut", cross of "n" or "a" and Y for "k"
Canadian brick graffiti

Other scripts, each one occupying just one brick , so surprisingly small script.
Canadian brick graffiti

"THE DARING SCOUT A SKILLED GUIDE A BOLD RIDER AND A BRAVE TRAPPER" with a bowie knife and a scimitar shaped blade
"31 FT NORTH CANADIAN SCOUTS 1868 / 1872"
"PRISS THE TIGER 1862 TO 1871 CAME INTO THIS HOUSE 1887"
"TRAPPER TIM AND PRISS THE SCOUT WHEN THEY CAME IN THE BOYS TURNED OUT"
Canadian brick graffiti

close up of the 31FT
"31 FT NORTH CANADIAN SCOUT RAYMOND P PARKES KNOWN IN THE FAR WEST AS PRISS THE TIGER ?R DARING ?L OF 9 YEARS"
A badge with shield shape with an up-pointed fletched arrow on either side, upper left quarter of the shield letters "UI" , top right 1/4 something like 2 interlocked pitchfork heads (interlocked E and reversed E but turned through 90 degrees), lower left 1/4 a heart and lower R 1/4 a shape like a deer-head face on

Canadian brick graffiti

a very intriguing house with shingled roof, a door and 4-pane window at ground level but 3 arrow slit type windows on the upper floor

Canadian brick graffiti

a couple of crosses and faces etc.
There was a Victor Parkes , carver and gilder in the 1895 Kellys at the address. He was probably the father of Raymond Parkes and grandfather of Raymond Percy Parkes in the 1881 census shows a Raymond Parkes (head) and Raymond Parkes (son).
My conjecture - It was probably a Victor Parkes , carver and gilder, who carved the bricks. Something like Spike Milligan's Elfin Oak in Kensington - to enchant children. He probably carved them in 1887, for his son Raymond Parkes' children, his grandchildren, as a sort of picture book. It would be interesting if just 2 letters FT rather than ST and the carefully carved native Canadian context pictures directed back to a Canadian origin for the otherwise unknown Victor Parkes. Remains the question , why so high off the ground if intended for children ? The 31FT reference is in, as far as anyone knows, to the ficticious "31 FT North Canadian Scouts" having these presumed adventures in the wilds of Canada. More pics of the brick carvings
Trapper
face
wigwam
cross
31FT
wigwam
cross
31FT
badge
scimitar
face

Some other local pages
Bitterne Park
St Denys
Peartree Green
Added here for no particular reason other than I could find no internet reference. I visited Bishop's Waltham , Hampshire and noticed a number of chimney pots with a fired-in white line around the pots about 3 or 4 inches down from the top. I asked a local builder working on a nearby job if he knew what these white rings represented. I seemed to have picked just the right person to ask. An ancestor of his had worked for the local Blanchards terracotta factory. It was their trade mark, in effect, for their chimney pots. Unless you got to Fareham or Porchester and they claim them for themselves or maybe 2 line/3 line or wavey line variants
Mansard roof at 172 Castle St, Porchester
Ditto
High St, Fareham with one of their early 1897 civic electric light lampposts pipped to the post by Godalming
High St, Fareham
A complex roofscape behind 46 ? High St, Fareham

A small study on Mathematical Tiles

Unusually, yellow "bricks " at 69 High St, Fareham

A close up of the front with where someone had screwed back some of the slipped tiles, showing the screw heads

If anyone disbelieves these are tiles then a couple of views around the side at the points marked with red "V" s.

Mathematical tiles , presumably because of their irregular thickness, would seem to be very difficult to make dimensionally stable, see the ones on Friends Meeting House, Winchester , somewhat warped.

Herbert Collins Trail

Herbert Collins Trail
The full file contains a lot of pictures so only the text and thumbnails placed here.

An exploration, by walking, the main areas of houses designed by local architect Herbert Collins and taking in some interesting sights along the way - how many people would say there were no thatched cottages in Southampton ?. [postcodes in square brackets for entering into http://local.live.com or Google maps for aerial views ] The main streets containing Herbert Collins houses are marked with a red "H" on my map and numbers referring to the photos . I've made it a circular walk starting in Abbotts Way, Portswood, close to where he lived between 1930 and 1973. The walk, excluding any exploration of the Swaythling/Mansbridge estate, is about 7.5 miles long. By the end of it you should be able to recognise a Collins house anywhere. His main "signature" is highlighted on picture 9 ,the 3 slivers of tile, placed instead of a single brick, sometimes as header, sometimes as stretcher. Making a virtue out of necessity, filling in the holes in the brickwork, where the wooden scaffolding had purchase, putlogs/putlocks. Also the visual illusion "arches" over window reveals. Complex parallelogram, or maybe made as wedge-shape bricks, in a fan pattern with a protruding "keystone" of 3 bricks at the centre. Doors that are 5 inches wider than normal, for coach-built prams. He liked to use pantiles on the roofs and header string courses in the brickwork. Makes you wonder what happened if the brickies missed out any of these features. He seemed to like planting apple trees, - eaters,cookers and crabs and even trellises are part of his signature. How about this Southampton tree, the only remarkable thing about it is, its unique in the UK - the Champion Tree a cross between a pear and something else.

I wonder if there is an image processing plug-in for auto-removal of wheelie bins ? Blue numbers on the map indicate the photo number and the blue line the direction found in and around the map.

(1) is 38 Brookvale Rd with blue plaque, showing HC lived here 1930 to 1973. Opposite there is a short walkway to the end of Orchards Way [SO17 1RF] and Uplands Way. (1) shows on the left the shingles covered spire of the church (2a),(2b) - unusual for UK. To cover this area fully you need to backtrack on yourself a few times but its well worth it. Post Box (4) with plaque is at the first bend in OW. (3) is Highfield Close with ornamental pond [SO17 1QZ]. (12) is Glebe Court [ SO17 1RH]. (10) even garages have their own pantiled pitched roofs, unfortunately Austin 7 size. The modern equivalent of coach-built prams got smaller and the replacement for Austin 7s got larger. (13) and (14) are 68-78 Highfield Lane going up to High Crown St. Unfortunately there is no exit down High Crown St so next to the pub you have to turn left into Hawthorn Rd, then Oakhurst Rd to join the common path. This path skirts the university, ignore that fork, to the right, and keep natural untended woodland on the other. Cross Burgess Rd at the pedestrian lights and go up Glen Eyre Rd. At the mini roundabout turn right then left into Copperfield Rd, First left into Parkway then left into Hurlingham Gardens. Up the stepped footpath and turn right into the path that goes between the two arms of Parkway or get to the continuation of this path via the narrow path opposite No 45 . Down to the brook with a sign showing it to be Forestry Commission ground. Then over the bridge and along the made-up path uphill and you come out at The Orchard area of Bassett Green Village [ SO16 3NA], not down the raised boardwalk going in the same direction as the stream to Daisy Dip. (16) and (17) are on Bassett Green with another interesting house (16a) between those 2 and also on bassett Green Rd opposite the junction to the green. (17) is St Christophers with its own sewer vent pipe. Don't miss out Field Close [SO16 3DY] and Binstead Close in the area of Ethelburt Ave [SO16 3DF] all with unadopted roads. Ethelbert name conflated from his name and that of his sister Ethel. HC houses are only in the lower end of Leaside Way. The bungalows in Summerfield Gardens maybe HC but according to a local resident he only knew they were built by Tizzards in 1950s. There is a small path between Summerfield Gardens to Greenways then L, first R, in Stoneham Lane and down Channels Farm Rd to (21) Channels Farm House. There are 2 paths either side of Phillimore Rd to get to Market Buildings residential/shop developement. Under the railway arch (Black Arch) , back at the end of Bassett Green Rd on corner of Wide Lane is another HC commerce developement. Unfortunately practically all the houses in the Swaythling and Mansbridge area have rendered elevations. Going down Wessex Lane you come to Connaught Hall [ SO18 2NS] and then around the bend Montefiore House. At the bus stop go into the grounds of the hall, down the track and behind the church is some sort of neglected hidden garden which onetime probably had statuary but now just a Portland stone edifice and cut beech hedge and lawn. Doubling back at Wessex Lane the access to the 12 century South Stoneham St Mary's Church looks like an access road to Connaught Hall of student residence. The footpath goes between Connaught and the church. Don't be tempted to stray towards the river or you may get a shotgun levelled at you from the keepers of the salmon hatchery hidden in that area. Herbert Collins estate is off to the left of this path [ SO18 2LS] . Continue on to Mansbridge , that tiny humpback bridge was part of the A27 up till the 1970s. There is a sign here for the start of the Itchen Navigation walk up to Winchester. If you should do that walk , inspect the remnants of the "flash locks" on the Itchen Navigation and research how they were used. The return leg of this walk is along the River Itchen, freshwater section to Woodmill and then tidal after that. A beauty spot at Saltmead next the sewage works, St Denys, on the other side of the tidal section of the River Itchen. Some would # pay silly money for such as an installation.
River Itchen , beauty spot

Its that frisson of contrast with the lime-green weed that has drifted down from the upper Itchen over the monotonal fluvial mud, failing to disguise the all too familiar man-made forms. As others have also appreciated this pic I've uploaded a higher resolution version of the image. Anyone care to sponsor me, to re-create this image as an installation for the Tate Modern ?

There are more HC houses in Southampton eg Thornhill Park Estate, Ascupart House Portswood Rd, medieval Bitterne Manor House conversion and addition etc, if anyone shows interest I could do a followup. Council car parks are marked with red "P", the one at Parkville Rd, opposite Market Buildings, Swaythling has an impressive display of tag graffiti.
Herbert Collins Trail
More walks in the Southampton area
Doe anyone know of an index of these HC site walks? http://herbertcollins.co.uk/home/content/view/109/2/
http://herbertcollins.co.uk/home/content/view/30/2/
http://herbertcollins.co.uk/home/content/view/103/2/
http://herbertcollins.co.uk/home/content/view/121/2/
http://herbertcollins.co.uk/home/content/view/135/2/
http://herbertcollins.co.uk/home/content/view/78/2/
http://www.southampton.gov.uk/leisure/events/july-september/Jane-Austen-Trail-and-Other-Walks.asp
http://www.whitenap.plus.com/itchen/itchen_acess.htm
http://www.britishwalks.org/walks/Counties/Hampshire/index.php

Some Further Observations

Off topic but an interesting play on words.
About 1982 to 1984 at the local newspaper "The Evening Echo" there was a matter of pride in sub-editors smuggling homonyms into titles and getting them past the editor.
Probably the best one to get through and be printed was the headline
ARRESTED MAN HAD PISTOL DOWN HIS TROUSERS

Does anyone recall another more recent such headline? Something like "Locals: mass debate over mobile phone mast"

Does anyone have any recollection of the following. A few months after the start of the Southampton Advertiser ,freesheet. A mother's son had just been put inside and she was disposing of some of his stuff in the Advertiser. Text of ad read something like " SAWN-OFF SHOTGUN FOR SALE, NO LONGER REQUIRED, USED ONCE - CONTACT ...... MILLBROOK TOWERS"

There is an expression ,probably Pompey navy slang, "Getting off at Fratton" even the ozzies have there own variant referring to Sydney something like " Getting off at Redfern". Could we have a version "Getting off at St Denys" . They are all the penultimate railway stations to a destination alluding to coitus interruptus.

In Memorium to some street characters.
"Maryland" for busking in Above Bar defending his pitch with determination.
The "violinist" in the subway next Kingsland Market. Any donations to him were in a vain effort to shut him up.
Ruth Mary Bundy for outraging public morals. I was told she was a nurse before personal difficulty and descending to the street. I got hold of her collar and dragged her from a totally unlit part of the middle of Duke's Rd one night. She was collapsed and out of it and I dragged her onto the pavement. She never swore at me after that. She had a habit ,summertime ,of patrolling Bevois Valley and reaching through open windows of the pubs and nicking people's drinks.
The tramp at the bottom end of town whose clothing was rags tied together with bits of coat-hanger wire.
The following I stumbled on in the Echo archive looking for something else.
Taken from p4 ,04 August 1973
Julian Barrett

Accompanying text: Meet Julian
This chap has been seen around Southampton for some time now,and said that he didn't mind at all if we took a picture of his amazing get-up.
He wears - by the look of it - everything that he can get his hands on....several jackets and coats,various pairs of gloves ,scarves and trousers. On top all that,he's adorned with plastic sheeting,strips of rag and newspapers,and odd shoes.
He said his name is Julian Barrett,and that he came to England from British Guyana. He speaks at such a rate that it's difficult to follow him but he says he has no real destinction. When the photographer ( Holmes) found him he was sitting on a wall about 200 yards from where he'd been the previous day.
Next
The retired schoolteacher who lived near Mount Pleasant Rd who took his guinea pig for walks on a lead. He moved on from ice-skating to wearing a monkey costume and skateboarding along the roads. Diving down the subways much to the annoyance of the cops who he always managed to evade.

Again slightly off topic now but a curious local story
In the churchyard of Pear Tree Church (Jesus Chapel) Woolston Southampton next to the church is the following recumbent memorial stone to one of (part Woolston) Itchen Ferry's lost sons
Sacred to the memory of
Richard Parker aged 17
Who died at sea July 25th 1884 after nineteen days dreadful suffering in an open boat in the tropics having been wrecked in the yacht Mignonette.
Neatly sidestepping the gory details about him being cannibalised by the surviving crew. For anyone surviving in similar circumstances make sure you stick to the story that you drew lots before selecting and killing your foodstuff.
To save me writing up I take the liberty to cross-link to The Story of the Mignonette
The following is part of the three column report on the 5 Dec 1884 in The Times,page 3 . For any local history,legal history or maritime history bods I have a printed version of the whole article.
Report of the trial in The Times Another odd death , of Douglas R G Lane, killed by lightning, grave in Southampton Old Cemetary on the common

Some odd and interesting snippets of local history Hampshire Chronicle - What we said
Stone coffin in St Denys Church originally from the priory of St Dionysius nearby, big enough for someone 6 foot 8 inches. Locals to Priory Close / nearby Priory Rd area speak of hearing ghostly bells in the middle of the night on some occasions.

A jumbled collection of encaustic tiles from St Denys Priory (built 1127 ) also displayed in the church

This church has a very old organ , transfered recently , but originally built 1756 with maybe part of it built in 1690.

Any local bods with their own favourite remembered grafitti / graffito I would like to hear from on

e-mail

diverse9@onetel.co.....m ( for anti-spamming reasons please remove all 5 dots ..... between co and m ) Plain text only (see below)

If this email address fails then replace onetel.com with divdev.fsnet.co.uk part of the address and remove the 9 . Please make emails plain text only , no more than 5KByte or 500 words. Anyone sending larger texts or attachments such as digital signatures, pictures etc will have them automatically deleted on the server. I will be totally unaware of this - sorry, again blame the spammers. If you suspect problems emailing me then please try using my fsnet.co.uk account.
Anyone with any background info and I could add an acknowledgement if OK. Please make any emails to me less than 5K or 500 words. Anyone sending larger texts or attachments such as digital signatures,pictures etc will have them automatically rejected. I will be totally unaware of this - sorry,again blame the spammers.

For years I have been trying to locate the world's best/worst postcard. I've only heard it described but would love to see it or even just a copy. It is presumably a postcard of Leeds, Yorkshire,since 1960 but whether still printed I've no idea. The picture is mainly acres of crushed brick of an urban clearance site. Just visible in the background is a gasometer. In the foreground is just the corner of a brick built building . There are no people shown or anything else. The title is the killer :-
VIEW OF THE GASWORKS FROM ARMLEY ROAD TOILETS

The next best postcards I have seen are 4-view cards "Building sites of Basingstoke " and "Pedestrian Underpasses of Croydon".

Nigel Cook

There now follows a plug for The Candleclub,Southampton
This is a very popular amateur performance show held Monday evenings at the Talking Heads pub,Portswood Rd. Now with top notch sound system .I don't think any act has been refused but is usually singer / songwriter /guitarist.
Any Petomanes out there? or Zapadnyj Sajan Tuvan throat singers?.
It is non-profit,free entry for performers (just turn up on the night,early,to book a 10 minute slot) and free entry for audience. By consensus and audience reaction the most appreciated act is invited to a monthly half hour showcase. There is easily an audience of 180 and 12 to 15 acts. No one is ever booed off stage, those first timers who make a hash of it usually get a resounding applause for effort and not sarcasm or derision.
Soon after they started it Clive and Simeon were running into problems with acts going over their alotted time slot. I said they should install a bank of 3 coloured lights as used on the podium of political conferences. Clive said his brother had hanging around a set of traditional traffic lights. So I said I would convert them with adjustable timers for an unmistakeable stage reminder. Adjustable times because about 10 minutes on the Mondays and 30 minutes on the Sundays. No more disapointments for acts squeezed out at the end of the evening.
An inside tip for anyone wanting to increase their chance of a halfhour session - turn up on a Bank Holiday Monday as few acts turn up on those days.
And a puff for a duo from the Bournemouth area , I'm surprised the search-engines have grabbed their site as it is all graphics and absolutely no text Bang Lassy or is it Jo & Karen or Doris & Dotty or Rose-Anna and Deardrie or now even Sister Bernadette and Sister Agnes they could at least put some of their inventively disgusting comic lyrics on the site - the down-side of reincarnation - Dolly the Toilet Roll Cover, Larry Takes it All or the twisted homage to Marilyn Manson's doting mother or the love paean to Alan Titchmarsh or Never Been a She (transvestisism) or the Transylvanian delights of a necrophiliac marriage, Kate Bush's Withering Tights (from fungal infection). Now political satire as Maggie Thatcher and John Major and even a 'ventriloquism' act of sorts and more dodgey puppetry with The Killing of Zippy and George new for 2006. a professional review of Bang Lassy

Keywords that have landed at this Southampton Graffiti file
The quirky word combinations that people have put in search-engines and end up at this file, updated monthly, or until it gets boring , " two foot long personel wind mill set" ?, "shoes with graffiti " ?

Even gets a mention on a French Wiki page
Even the Orkneys has had one for ages, belatedly Soton has joined the Café Scientifique movement, specifically
Café Scientifique (Southampton) Open to the public lectures with a science theme, third ? thursdays or second to last? thursdays of the month, at 7pm, Starbucks Coffee Shop on the first floor of the Borders Bookshop, Unit 9, West Quay Retail Park, West Quay Road, Southampton.

Tunnel under Southampton Water and Bog Bodies
Good internet fare , little known tunnel, aliens, men in white coats, conspiracy, cover-up and bodies,
Firstly from www.fld.org.uk/pdf/full_report.pdf
The Scope for Undergrounding Overhead Electricity Lines
Table 2.1 Southampton Water Tunnel, 400kV, 1962, a 3.2km section of line was undergrounded under Southampton Water, preferred to an overhead crossing by the CEGB for amenity, engineering and system security reasons
Cut down pic of one bog body

Cadland /Fawley bog bodies

Fawley/Cadland Bog Bodies, full picture
"Mr Dunn, a neighbour of Alan Murray, worked on the foundations of Fawley Power Station in about 1965. The Transmission Tunnel for electricity lines under Southampton Water and the Outfall Tunnel for discharge of cooling water into the Solent were being excavated at Fawley at this time. Mr Dunn remember that as they dug down they went through some sand and then through a "peat bog". He claims that in the peat they found some bodies which seemed to him to look like "alien figures". A sketch by Alan Murray based on what has been remembered by Mr Dunn is shown here, but should be treated with caution because it is not meant to be accurate but only a representation of the general appearance of the remains. If bodies did exist then the strange appearance of the bodies may have been the result of effective mummification in the peat. When the find was made the workers were ordered to stop work. Quite soon some people in white coats, whom Mr Dunn thought came from Southampton University, took away the bodies. Excavation work started again. He says he has enquired about these bodies, but has never been able to find out where they are or anything about them. No-one from Southampton University seems to know anything about them, and Ian West was in the Geology Department then and had not heard of them."
Tunnel under Southampton Water and Bog Bodies
This story also explored further in the Southampton Daily Echo / Heritage section p11 & 12, 15 July 2006 but never appeared in their web archive, the new material only from that report is
Strange case of Dicky Dunn and the bog bodies
By Sally Churchward
It is one of Hampshire's great mysteries. It has it all- strange alien-looking bodies, mysteri-ous people in white coats, a possible cover-up and a lot of unanswered questions. It could have come straight out of The X-Files. More than 40 years later the truth about the Fawley bog bodies is still not known. Unconfirmed stories have been circulating in the Hampshire archaeological community and in pubs for decades about two alien-like bodies that were supposedly found by men excavating at Fawley power station. The actual facts of about what really happened are as sketchy as they are tantalising. Reportedly a man called Dennis "Dicky" Dunn from Shakespeare Avenue, Totton, was working on shafts being tunnelled at Fawley in about 1965. Having dug down about 75 feet they came to a layer of peat. Here they were shocked to discover what appeared to be two small bodies, about four feet long, of alien-like appearance. Work was stopped and some people in white coats came and removed the bodies -and they were never heard of again. Later on Mr Dunn asked the foreman what had happened to the bodies and was told that no bodies had been found - they had just been tree trunks. He then contacted the Daily Echo to see if anyone had heard anything and spoke to a gravedigger at Fawley Church to see if the bodies had been reburied but no one knew anything. Sadly Mr Dunn died in February but his wife Doreen still vividly remembers when he came home from work and told her what he had seen. "He said there were some fingers from the bodies that had broken off and he wished he'd kept them," she said. "He was always convinced that he'd sen the bodies. At the time lots of the men he worked with used to come to our house and they were all talking about seeing the bodies." There were lots of Irish workers in Mr Dunn's team and he and his wife suspected that the bodies may have been taken to Ireland where they were subsequently "discovered".
On the Horizon documentary about Lindow Man there was reference to a lot of these bog bodies disappearing soon after moder-times discovery but not enlarged upon.
More cultural achievement in Southampton
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/630747.stm Friday, 4 February, 2000, 11:39 GMT The 2,700-year-old bike rack Eyptian statue Staff leaned their bikes against the statue Archaeologists used to treasures from far-away temples are hailing one unearthed rather closer to home - behind the staff bicycles in a Hampshire cellar. A 2,700-year-old statue of the Egyptian king Taharqa has reportedly been found in the basement of the God's House Tower archaeological museum in Southampton, after being ignored for a century. Staff used it to lean their bicycles against - but no-one realised the 27-inch statue's importance until two Egyptologists came to visit the museum.
A plug for local bike enthusiast, repairer, maintainer and seller of all sorts of second-hand bicycles : contact Mark in Shirley, tel 02380 637605

On Ibsley Common on the other side of the new forest is an octagonal brick building, something to do with the WWII airfield and radio/radar mast. inside it is the usual collection of peoples names and dates, plus the graffiti 'The night conceals the world but reveals the universe' in big white letters. Quite unexpected. Pictures here:
'The night conceals the world but reveals the universe'
Octagonal building - JC

Portswood nuclear fallout bunker ?

Which naturally segues into this odd octagonal brick construction on St Denys Road directly opposite Portswood Police Station. Built when the present bus garage was constructed this construction encloses the air handling filters for the fallout shelter - but for who ?. Access is under Portswood police station and via a connecting tunnel under the road, not from the bus garage. Should make life interesting for the conveyancing solicitors exchanging ownership from First Direct to Sainsbury's before building their new supermarket on the site. If you go to aerial view/map site http://local.live.com/ and put in postcode SO17 2GN its what appears as a small black circle at that resolution, and looking directly down into the vent, about a roads width NE of the KEEP CLEAR marking in St Denys Rd. Something to do on a wet afternoon - find the postcodes of UK police stations and look on aerial view sites for other black holes associated with them.

Cerne Abbas 'Giant'

The real 400 yearold or so giant can be found just NNE of postcode DT2 7LS in a rectangular fence? border, his feet to the west.
Bellemoor Boys School

at postcode location SO15 7QU
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,2002927,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=1 http://map.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&ss=yp.school&cp=sgn9p8gwf5nt&style=o&lvl=1&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&scene=4316486 Schoolyard penis seen from space Press Association Wednesday January 31, 2007 EducationGuardian.co.uk Two pupils who drew a giant penis on a school lawn using weed killer two years ago can still admire their work from satellite photos now posted on the internet. Despite the school re-seeding the area, the penis has turned up on satellite image search engines because a photo was taken before the new grass could conceal the appendage. The unnamed pair of year 11 pupils from Bellemoor school for boys in Southampton, burned the 6-metre (20ft) phallus into the grass as an end of term joke.

The world's first graffiti well worth a visit
Some home-grown buried on this site
Maes Howe ,Orkneys, Viking runic graffiti

Banksy - stencil graffiti artist ,note his handle had to be a scriptform that could be cut into stencil
One place I did not expect to see graffiti is scratched into the stone-work in the cloister/quad/chappel area of stiff-collared Winchester College, obviously not expunged over the centuries. Also in Winchester, the Westgate some very ornate 17th century prisoner graffiti.
Some high-brow 1843 graffitti celebrating the eureka moment of mathematician William Rowan Hamilton inventing quaternions at Brougham Bridge on the Royal Canal, Dublin
A celebration of street culture - including links to the like of the Japanese museum of man-hole covers

And a few eclectic sites

Extreme Ironing
A different slant on the hoax moon landing conspiracies or
http://web.archive.org/web/20030602181024/http://www.dc8p.com/html/moonhoax.html
HMG - Preparing for Emergencies
The Joy of Socks
Not exactly Sotherby's
The Pilchard Museum
2B or not 2B
The loneliest phone booth in the world (Mojave Desert ) and here photos
The gentrified bus shelter on Unst
If you ever doubted Asperger's Syndrome and maleness were synonymous
How to build better sandcastles
How to build the best paper airplane
Ballooning about
Wish I thought of it first
The original Shakesperean Insult Kit , on archive
The garden Gnome Liberation Front
Anyone any pics of the house at the corner of Alma Rd and Portswood road when it was infested with gnomes ?
The Barbie Liberation Organisation
Naughtie Harry Potter Broomsticks
or http://web.archive.org/web/20031207011003/http://methodshop.com/fun/sexy/PottersStick/index.stm
What you didn't know about treehouses and perhaps related
The "Mornington Crescent" of Usenet group uk.rec.sheds
Talking of sheds, this person (known to the writer ) and the delivery of his glorified wendy house. My shed required the labour of myself and a girl to move into the back garden. This one was a 2.1 ton, including hook, lift costing 800 quid. Full jib reach required so jib could be poked up through a gab in the phone wires, hook dropped and shed lifted, off the lorry, through another gap in the wires a long way down the road
Wendy house lift

Outriggers on pavements with 6 inch space to garden wall
Wendy house lift

No wheels on the ground
Wendy house lift

Finally if anyone knows the wherabouts of the following website could they tell me. Apparently somewhere on the internet is someone who has created a collection of pictures of women standing in puddles. Nothing sexual or scatalogical just ordinary circumstances but women standing (not walking ) in puddles. It could only be on the internet.

Now because of overwhelming number of contacts from people October 2006, presumably due to the excessive publicity about what was falsely deemed the highest tides for 25 years. Look at the calculator readouts for 2006/2007 etc at the end of this piece. Amazingly, apparently nothing on the internet, this sort of local flood info or even nationally when future high tide days occur through the year, presumably because companies want to sell their tide tables. Hardly anything of any use on http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/subjects/flood/

5 metre tide covering the path , Janaway Gardens, St Denys
And because you can easily find the tide times for Dover in national newspapers and national TV teletext but not the times for Southampton and I could not find the conversion factors on the internet.
For Springs - First High Water at Southampon Dock Head is about 15 minutes earlier than Dover and about 2 metres less than the heights expressed for Dover
For Neaps - First High Water at Southampton Dock Head is between 10 and 45 minutes earlier and 1.5 metres less, beware of any GMT/BST differences.
Second High Water is about 1 1/2 hours later and lower height
Corrections (highly weather dependent ) for Redbridge is about 5 minutes earlier than Dock Head HW, and Woodmill about 10 minutes earlier than Dock Head HW.
Low Water is about 6 hours after first High Water. And the general tidal advance on corresponding tides about 50 minutes per day.
A useful facility , predicted and near actual from tideguages around the country but not Soton near real time National Tide Gauge Network View the following with caution Bramble Bank water-level was always "higher" than Dockhead spring, neap, high or low , any barometric, wind direction/strength or any other time. Was, May 2006 average 0.7m higher, June 2006 average about 1.1m higher. Where was all this water continually flowing downhill into Southampton Water going - isn't technology wonderful.? July they corrected the system. Then it got really bad in August a tide high enough to get a ship to Winchester, 55.7 metres
Southampton - Dock Head - 17:41 19/8/2006
Wind
Mean Speed 15 kts (F4)
Highest Gust 19 kts (F5)
Direction 236°
Sea Conditions
Tidal Height 55.7 m

With a high tide measuring 5.0m at Dock Head via near real time VTS met and tides info the corresponding level of water at Priory Road Hard/slip , St Denys was 0.53m below the top level of the concrete ramp of the hard. About 4 bays of railings down on the down-stream side and about 3 bays on the up-stream side. Each bay of railings on the down-stream side corresponds to about 0.13m difference in height on this hard. With a predicted 4.8m tide but 5.0m at Dock Head because air pressure was 1004mB. The level at dock head, at high water, that corresponds to over-topping at Priory Rd hard would be about 5.5m.
The next 4 photos are for 5m tide

Priory Hard with a 5.2m tide (Dock Head) on 05 Dec 2006 at about 10.30, with the drift line 3 barriers down the ramp, 0.5m higher than 4.7m prediction probably mainly due to severe SW gales in the channel, Plymouth and Dover did not show surges due to the low off the north of Scotland.

"millionaire row" with a 5.2m tide

The tide-mark for 5m is actually the brown twig line to the left of the life belt rack. The 5m line at this point at Pettinger gardens , the concrete structure just upstream of the house boats is 0.17m below the ledge marked with 2 red lines in the next pic.

Pettinger Gardens wiith a 5.2m tide, with life belt point in the water.

Dyer's Boatyard at Cobden Bridge with a 5.2m (Dock Head) tide
Dyers boatyard

Riverside Park under a 5.2m tide, also slippery road sign that has been there about 10 years.

I've seen a high tide across the river path and grass up to about where the small tree is , so substantially more than 5m. Cobden bridge must be near unique for having allowed car parking along its length for most of the day. I assume because it was built wide with a tram-line across it but only to Bitterne Triangle as of a 1910 map.
Another aside - the "new" Itchen Bridge was built in the mid 1970s. The pier second in towards Woolston, from mid-stream, was built at the height of the 1976 drought. Despite bringing in large water pumps and spraying the formwork, the concrete , already exothermic, was still getting far too hot for proper strong concrete. Someone made the decision not to demolish that pier. Anyone know the date, for the floating bridges were still operating, what day there was an extremely low low water in the Itchen. One "bridge" bottomed-out and the other, when at the land had to be continually edged into stream to stop it grounding too. There was so little water left in the Itchen that not only the slab section below the tarmac on the hards was exposed but perhaps 40 foot of mud to tramp through. Exposed in this mud just where the bridge ramps would smash it normally, was a Cod's Wallob marble stopped bottle buried in the mud, presumably undisturbed for decades.
Unfortunately the level at which water comes up the storm drain system, immediately, no time lag, into the gutter in Priory Rd at the hard is only 5.1m, not many people realise that. The picture below is for a 5m tide, the leaves are nothing to do with the situation, as soon as the tide goes down then so does the water in the drain. According to the highways dept this road drain system is connected to a flap-valve river outfall just upstream Cobden Bridge and 3 at Saltmead so the river water probably enters at those points.
Cobden Bridge outlet / INLET

Doing the Priory Rd shuffle with a 5.2m tide at the hard, also evidence of the leaves piled on the pavemnent that one of the locals still believes that this sort of flooding is due to leaves blocking the drains - wrong.
Shuffle

I would have thought it was an easy internet task to couple this pic with one of the far better examples from Bosham. The Anchor Bleu on Shore Rd has dozens of such pics in the pub but a paucity on the net. This is the only one I could find.
Bosham marine car park
If atmospheric pressure drops to 965 mBar then the water height can increase by 0.8m. Tide table heights are expressed for a standard atmosphere of 1013mBar, from that there is a neat correction that for each 1mBar drop in air pressure then tide height can rise (not fall) 1 cm. Those heights also relate to above lowest astronomically predicted local low water heights so not a countrywide correspondence between tide height and Ordnance Survey land spot heights. The corresponding land-based spot heights from the 1:1250 scale OS map is 2.4m for Priory Rd crown of road adjascent to the hard, 3.0m at nearest 2 road junctions, only one bench mark remains at the railway bridge on the north side, 3.28m so by as bit of trig the lowest gutter level under the bridge is 2.43m .
5.2m tide level coming up through the drains at this railway bridge.
rail_dip

For the 5.6m tide of 10 Mar 2008 the water under the bridge reached level 0.48m below the benchmark. So 5.6m tide at dock head correlated to OS heigt of 2.80m. For 5.2m tide correlated to 2.48m OS. Not knowing which would be more accurate , unknown wind effects between Dock Head and St Denys, lag in sewer system etc then taking average of these 2 results, then subtract 2.76m from tide height gives Ordnance Survey spot height (about ).
Using a 14m long ,1/8 inch bore clear polythene tube manometer. Check for lack of bubbles in the water first, by positioning open ends together and suspending over a long drop , bigger than 1/8 inch would give quicker response time. Assuming uniform slope for Ivy Road then that slope from South Rd to Priory Rd is about 8.1 in 1000. I was not the only person to think that despite many mentions of global warming/sea level rises, there is less flooding now than in past years. Does anyone have any photos of this local flooding ? Is anyone aware of a locally organised flood warning system for this area ?, separate from Environment Agency flood warden system , as I suppose with melting Antartica/Greenland etc this area is more likely to flood than just the odd rare tide. Flooding in Priory Rd on Sunday 17 Dec 1989 was to OS height of about 2.9m. I've not found an official record of this flood height othe rthan "southwesterly storms combined with a surge of excess of 1 metre" but was higher than the 10 Mar 2008 flooding by 0.1 to 0.2m so 1989 tide height about 5.7m. It is often stated that the historical highest tide at Souithampton was 27 November 1924.
St Denys flood zone

Apologies for my choices of colour, the purple and red are not too different. The blue line is what the 1953 Canvey Island surge would be and the 1607 Bristol Channel inundation surge of 7.5m would be half way up the hill between Osborne Rd and Belmont Rd. That day Lymington had 5 foot of flooding, 70mph winds locally and 115mph in Cornwall. Predicted tide was only 4.1m but barometric was a very low 968mB, nearest depression was about 956mB in channel approaches 340 miles away at noon 17 Dec and 972mB 220 miles away noon on 18 Dec. Also local flooding on Sunday 4 Dec 1994 when Hamble had 2 foot of water, barometric was high at about 1008mB but 4.9m predicted tide height. Nearest depression was about 972mB 740 miles away in sea area Rockal. Incidently believed lowest recorded tide in 20 century up to that date was on 9 March 1993, of 0.1m and HT of 4.9m. Odd coincidence the worst maritime flooding in living memory was the Canvey Island flood again on Sunday, Feb 01 , 1953 when tide was mid spring-neap but a severe depression of 968 mB. More flooding Monday 27 Dec 1999 when there was 4 foot of water in Waterloo Rd, Lymington , Fulmar Rd , Hythe and half submerged cars at Hurst Spit car park, mid day , Selsey and Pevensey sea defences breached, predicted pressure was 992mB and tides of 4.5 and 4.3m. Associated with a bad storm in N France, nothing untoward predicted by the French Met service, 107mph wind and 31 people killed in N France, just a low over Poland, their equivalent of Oct 1987 English storm. According to an old boy of Northam extraction , the Coopers pub had a dated tide-mark for when the pub flooded numerous times. When I went to see in 2007 it was closed and for sale.
Locally highest spring tides are 1 to 3 days after new and full moons. Moon Date http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/phase/phase2001gmt.html
Running freeware tide calculator WXTide32 from July 2006 to Oct 2007 the highest predicted tides for Pompey setting, with usual caveats about taking independent advice and that low barometric pressures can easily over-ride such predictions. For 5.1m on 07 Oct 2006 11.57 GMT, 08 Oct 12.35, 28 Sep 2007 12.48, 26 Oct 2007 11.43, 27 Oct 2007 12.24 and for 5.0 m tides in 2006 08,09,10 Sep; 08,09 Oct ; 05,06 Nov; and 2007 18,22 Mar ; 27,28, 29 Sep; 25,27,28 Oct . Portsmouth 5.1m tides correspond to about 4.9m Southampton First High Water height, about 30 minutes earlier than Pompey for such extreme spring high tides. In fact running the program from 2006 to Nov 2020 shows no higher predicted tides than 5.1m . I've checked this WXTide32 calculator against some old south coast tide tables of 1985,1987 and 2002 and some current newspaper predictions, consistent to within about 10 minutes and 0.1m . A Tide Calendar/calculator for Dutch ports is on http://www.getij.nl/index.cfm?taal=en, for selecting Vlissingen (Flushing) ,GMT and LAT, then deduct about 2 hours 35 mins (variation 2 hours 20min to 2 hours 50min extreme times not coincident with extreme tide range ) and deduct about 0.4 metres (variation 0.1m to 0.7m) from the Vlissingen times and heights for Southampton first High Water times and heights. Using WXTide32 with offset is more accurate.
Predicted Tide Heights for 2006 to 2007, using WXtide32 and Pompey settings.

For 5.1m in 

2006
07 Oct 2006 11.57 GMT, 
08 Oct 12.35, 
2007
28 Sep 2007 12.48, 
26 Oct 2007 11.43, 
27 Oct 2007 12.24 

and for 5.0 m tides in 
2006 
08,09,10 Sep; 
08,09 Oct ; 
05,06 Nov; 

2007 
18,22 Mar ; 
27,28, 29 Sep; 
25,27,28  Oct . 
Portsmouth 5.1m

tides correspond to about 4.9m Southampton First High Water height. In fact running the program from 2006 to Nov 2020 shows no higher predicted tides than 5.1m. Spreads of days when the predicted heights for Portsmouth have at least one tide greater than 4.7m. Add a simple pop-up date reminder / calendar alarm like the freeware J.M. Falcao one on http://www.webxpace.net/software/software.html to flash up a reminder on your pc on the relevant days to check local tide times, . Save or even create the DateRemind.DAT file as a text file consisting of

High Tides check
07/10/06
High Tides check
08/10/06

etc, etc if you should manage to erase the calendar file by clicking Exit rather than Minimise. Then outside of the running application just change the file name to DateRimind.DAT Also monitor local atmospheric pressure (get a barometer and tap it daily), and port say http://www.pol.ac.uk/ntslf/pltdata_tgi_ntslf_v2.php?code=Portsmouth&span=1 for nearby ports giving the signature of increasing difference between the blue and red ( actual tide heights and predicted )
Pompey elevated high tide

Snapshot showing a storm surge 0.5m elevated peak at about 22.00 on 21 Sep 2006 when the Portsmouth atmospheric pressure was 1002mB and rising and had been locally that +/- 3mB for the previous 24 hours. So that increase was due to an effect at a distance - the final gasp of Hurricane Gordon passing to the west of Ireland. Closest approach about noon on 21 Sep 480 miles distant. A good tidal bellweather for Southampton would seem to be monitoring the pol.ac.uk tide gauge for Bournemouth as their first high water precedes by about 2.5 hours and any excess over predicted at Bournemouth is likely to affect Southampton even if the Plymouth and Dover gauges show nothing untoward. eg 18 Jan 2005 (high SW winds in the English Channel ) we can usually assume that barometric pressure at Bournemouth is much the same as Soton, that day 990mB, a 0.5m surge at Bournemouth evident at about 04.00 ,4 hours before their high water and 6 hours before first high water at Soton, predicted 4.4m at 10.03, turned out to be 0.6m over predicted, 6 hours later. At end of October 2006 a fairly minor 980mB depression tracked N of Scotland to Norway and back into the North Sea. Analysing that tidal surge that killed a beach angler at Kessingland and seawater flooded the main A12 Tracking around the SE approximate readings and times
Whitby ,excess over predicted of, 1m 20.00 , 31 Oct to 06.00 , 01Nov 2006
Cromer 1.2m 0200 to 1000 , 01 Nov
Harwich 1.4m 0000 to 0900
Felixstowe 1.5m 0000 down to 1m 1000
Sheerness 1.8m 0000 to 1.5m 0500
(Not far from Canvey Island, scene of the 1953 flood about the same time of night) Dover 1.2m 0000 to 1m 0300
Newhaven 0.7m 23.00 ,31 Oct to 0100 , 01 Nov
Portsmouth peak of 0.7m at 0200
Bournemouth .7m 0100 to 0300
Weymouth 0.6m 0100 to 0300
The Thames Estuary seems a good place for anomalies "anti surge" anti-residual at Sheerness of maximum (minmnimum ?) of 1.4m below predicted at 0700 Sunday 20 Nov 2006. That by then -0.9m antisurge peak/trough? passed Dover at 1000 , 20 Nov and Portsmouth of about -0.7m at about 1200 , 20 Nov. The strongest winds for the greatest duration over that period seemed to be along the South Coast but the anti-surge effect occured strongest and earliest in the Thames sea area. Does anyone know if there was extreme currents going NE through the Dover Straits causing some sort of Venturi effect in the southern North Sea. ? SW Winds at Chichester Bar were averaging 30 to 45 mph from 1900 of the 19th to 0700 on the 20th. Cliffsend / Margate averaging 20 to 35 mph 2100 on the 19th to 1000 on the 20th. Ipswich 15 to 20mph 2100 19th to 0600 20th Nov Atmosheric pressure was fairly stable between 1010mB and 1014 mB Looking at the BODC data for Sheerness station 1990 to 2002. Not unusual for large anti-residuals for more than -2m
1997/02/19 22.00 to 0830 next day with peak/trough of -2.26m
1990/12/25 17.00 peak/trough of -2m
and loads more >1 , <2m Those two events are too early to have archived synoptics on http://www.wetterzentrale.de/topkarten/tkfaxbraar.htm The next , in severity, Sheerness anti-surges 34310) 1999/12/24 09:15:00 -1.9m peak/trough from the archived chart time 00.00 12/24 a 957mB low about 60N, 10W and 1008mB at Thames and isobars running up the English Channel 28753) 2002/10/27 12:00:00 -1.8m peak/trough time 00.00 10.27 975mB nearer low at about 53N, 10W and 1004mB at Thames and isobars running up the English Channel.

So also needing monitoring is any significant distant low pressure systems from say http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/charts/FSXX00T_12.jpg? etc The effect recurred on the 11 Jan , 2007. Predicted tide range for Sheerness was 3.1m but on that day a whopping 6m range. Checking Dutch tidegauges on http://www.actuelewaterdata.nl/waterstand/ did not show this effect ie peak of the antisurge on that day was 1.5m. Perhaps it is the shape of Kent coast that is causing the effect.
09 November 2007 and that North Sea Tidal surge , the biggest anomaly I am aware of was Harwich http://www.diversed.fsnet.co.uk/harwich09112007.jpg 2.2m over predicted 2 hours after LW. That day maxima excess Whitby 1.6m at their local LW, Cromer 1.8m about 2 hours before local LW to LW, Sheerness 2.2m 2 hour after local LW, Dover 1.4m at their LW. Interestingly into the English Channel, Newhaven 0.8m at LW, Portsmouth 0.8m at LW + 3hr and still 0.45m excess at local HW. Southampton had a 0.5m excess at local HW and Bournmouth 0.5m excess at their LW plus 4 hr. No observable effect by Plymouth. 01 March , 2008 1m tidal surge at Southampton HW but on a neap tide of 3.4m at 1900 so made no impression. Portsmouth 0.8m at 18.00, Felixstowe that day had a 2m excess at 12.00 to 15.00,Dover 1.5m at 14.00 , Plymouth 0.4m 19.00 hours, Avonmouth 1.2m at 18.00 hours.

St Denys flooding of 10 March , 2008

My prediction on the 08 March was for the surge around the UK to be much as 26 December 1999 and 25th , N Atlantic charts from http://www.wetterzentrale.de/topkarten/tkfaxbraar.htm 0.7m over predicted 4.7m and a 5.5m tide in Southampton Water. The morning started with the tide in Southampton Water 06.50 and Southampton Water 1.6m higher than it should be , because of a local low going through. Bellweather Bournemouth did its stuff. .65m over predicted at their high tide at 10.30, multiply by 1.3 for Southamton corresponding tide.
Bournemouth tide gauge

Reached 5.60m at 12.10 at the Dock Head on 10 Mar 2008 so 0.9m over predicted and pressure of 965.3 mBar. The very start, water just emerging from , not to, the drain at Priory Rd Hard at 11.35, when the tide at dock head was 5.17m.

soon reaching the crown of the road
Priory Road

With large red van blocking the road in Priory Rd. Forces the conflict of interest in favour of the residents. Drivers want to speed through floods and residents don't want bow vaves thrusting indoors, after all they've only to reverse and go round the other way. Viewed from the Junction inn at the height of the flood which extended to gutter level adjascent to 84 Priory Rd. In 1989 it extended 0.1 to 0.2m higher.

On the hard, seawater encroaching the grass area
Priory Hard

Very difficult situation to take pictures, exposed to the wind and driving rain.
Priory Hard

becoming an island with water at the top of the hard
Priory Hard

The water coming up the storm drain system through the drain in the centre of the hard carpark and just before the water started to flow over the top of the hard and time to leave , before getting isolated/trapped
Priory Hard

Under the Priory Rd railway bridge

Pettinger gardens , the water up to the gap in the houses

At this point the rain turned to driving hail , thunder and lightening and Cobden Bridge not a place to hang around.
4 pictures taken by RC , taken from the Riverside Park area
One of the residents of Priory Rd ready to be airlifted out ;-)
airlift

The flood line at the Saltmead end of Priory Rd, 0.03m above the concrete under the main line of fencing at the nearest outfall, flooding 3 roads in the Saltmead area.
Saltmead flooding

Swanning around in what is normally the kid's play area of Riverside Park
swanning about

View back to Cobden Bridge, the V denotes a houseboat gangplank that is normally about horizontal at high water.

NB for

PORTSMOUTH

tides greater than 4.7 metres for 2007, 2008 and 2009. High tide times marked H and 24 hour clock followed by heights in metres. Colour coded as follows
5.1m = 5.1
5.0m = 5.0
4.9m = 4.9
4.8m = 4.8
4.7m = 4.7
Corresponding low tide times and heights preceeded by the letter L. For other coastal areas around the UK the days of highest tides are still applicable but ignore the actual times or discover the conversion factors for your area - you'd expect a cross-table of the main port's approximate tidal difference times relative to each other port to be available somewhere on the net. Some tidal differences at end of table. For corresponding Southampton first high water times deduct about 25 minutes to 75 minutes dependent on complicated neap/flood/new/full/equinox/solstice factors , and deduct about 0.2m from the heights. For Southampton low water times , ranges from adding about 7 minutes if a day or two after new or full moon to subtracting about 40 minutes, 9 to 11 days, after new or full moon , fairly invariant from equinoxes, and deduct about 0.2m from the heights. Portsmouth Predicted Extreme High Tides for 2007, 2008, 2009 Times are GMT and BST where appropriate

2007

Jan19     Jan20 
L0430 1.3 L0511 1.1
H1124 4.6 H1201 4.7
L1652 0.9 L1732 0.8
H2354 4.7           

Jan21     Jan22     Jan23     Jan24 
H0031 4.8 H0110 4.8 H0153 4.8 H0241 4.7 
L0553 1.0 L0635 1.0 L0718 1.0 L0803 1.0 
H1239 4.7 H1321 4.7 H1406 4.7 H1458 4.5 
L1813 0.7 L1855 0.7 L1939 0.7 L2026 0.9 

Feb17 
L0411 1.1
H1101 4.6
L1631 0.7
H2328 4.8

Feb18     Feb19     Feb20     Feb21     Feb22           
L0451 0.9 H0004 4.9 H0043 4.9 H0125 4.9 H0212 4.8 
H1138 4.8 L0532 0.7 L0613 0.6 L0655 0.6 L0738 0.8 
L1711 0.5 H1216 4.9 H1257 4.9 H1342 4.8 H1433 4.6 
           L1752 0.4 L1833 0.4 L1916 0.5 L2000 0.7

Mar18     Mar19     Mar20     Mar21     Mar22     Mar23             
L0345 0.9 L0426 0.6 L0507 0.5 H0015 5.0 H0058 4.9 H0146 4.8 
H1034 4.7 H1112 4.8 H1152 4.9 L0549 0.4 L0631 0.5 L0715 0.7 
L1605 0.6 L1646 0.4 L1727 0.3 H1234 4.9 H1320 4.8 H1413 4.6 
H2258 4.8 H2336 5.0           L1809 0.3 L1852 0.5 L1937 0.8 

British Summer Time starts 01 Apr , so add 1 hour to the GMT times below

Apr15     Apr16     Apr17     Apr18     Apr19     Apr20   
L0333 1.2 L0417 0.8 L0500 0.6 H0009 4.9 H0051 4.9 H0137 4.8 
H1024 4.4 H1106 4.6 H1147 4.8 L0543 0.4 L0626 0.4 L0710 0.5 
L1553 0.9 L1637 0.6 L1720 0.4 H1230 4.8 H1315 4.8 H1405 4.7 
H2249 4.7 H2328 4.8           L1803 0.4 L1847 0.5 L1932 0.7 

May15     May16     May17     May18   
L0350 0.9 L0436 0.7 L0522 0.6 H0035 4.7 
H1041 4.5 H1128 4.6 H1215 4.6 L0609 0.6 
L1611 0.8 L1657 0.7 L1744 0.7 H1306 4.6 
H2303 4.7 H2348 4.8           L1831 0.8 

Aug01     Aug02     Aug03        
H0120 4.6 H0158 4.6 H0240 4.6 
L0653 0.7 L0732 0.7 L0813 0.7 
H1349 4.7 H1428 4.7 H1512 4.7 
L1912 1.0 L1953 0.9 L2036 1.0 

Aug28     Aug29     Aug30     Aug31     Sep01 
L0512 0.9 H0017 4.7 H0053 4.8 H0132 4.9 H0214 4.8
H1208 4.7 L0550 0.6 L0628 0.5 L0708 0.5 L0749 0.5
L1731 1.0 H1241 4.8 H1317 4.9 H1357 4.9 H1441 4.9
          L1809 0.8 L1849 0.7 L1929 0.7 L2011 0.8

Sep02   
H0302 4.7 
L0832 0.7 
H1532 4.7 
L2056 1.0 

Sep11     Sep12     Sep13        
L0513 0.9 H0025 4.6 H0056 4.6 
H1219 4.7 L0548 0.8 L0622 0.8 
L1732 1.1 H1247 4.7 H1317 4.7 
          L1807 1.0 L1840 1.0 

Sep25     Sep26     Sep27     Sep28     Sep29 
L0403 1.1 L0443 0.8 L0523 0.5 H0027 5.0 H0107 5.0
H1100 4.7 H1135 4.9 H1210 5.0 L0603 0.4 L0644 0.5
L1624 1.1 L1703 0.8 L1743 0.6 H1248 5.1 H1330 5.0
H2312 4.7 H2349 4.9           L1824 0.5 L1906 0.6

Sep30     Oct01      
H0151 4.9 H0241 4.7 
L0726 0.6 L0811 0.9 
H1415 4.9 H1508 4.7 
L1949 0.7 L2035 1.0 

Oct10     Oct11     Oct12      
L0446 1.1 H0001 4.6 H0032 4.6 
H1150 4.7 L0521 1.0 L0555 1.0 
L1706 1.1 H1218 4.7 H1248 4.7 
          L1740 1.1 L1812 1.1 

Oct24     Oct25     Oct26     Oct27 
L0330 1.1 L0413 0.8 L0456 0.6 H0004 5.0
H1024 4.8 H1103 5.0 H1143 5.1 L0539 0.6
L1553 1.1 L1636 0.8 L1719 0.6 H1224 5.1
H2242 4.7 H2322 4.9           L1802 0.5

British Summer Time ends 28 October

Oct28     Oct29     Oct30        
H0048 5.0 H0036 4.9 H0131 4.7 
L0523 0.6 L0608 0.8 L0656 1.1 
H1208 5.0 H1257 4.8 H1352 4.6 
L1746 0.6 L1832 0.8 L1922 1.1 

Nov09     Nov10 
L0354 1.3 L0429 1.3
H1052 4.7 H1124 4.7
L1614 1.2 L1648 1.2
H2311 4.5 H2346 4.5

Nov22     Nov23     Nov24
L0156 1.2 L0245 1.0 L0333 0.9
H0850 4.7 H0936 4.9 H1023 4.9
L1424 1.2 L1511 0.9 L1558 0.8
H2114 4.6 H2202 4.8 H2250 4.8

Nov25     Nov26     Nov27     Nov28 
L0420 0.8 L0508 0.9 H0032 4.8 H0128 4.7 
H1109 4.9 H1157 4.9 L0556 1.0 L0646 1.2 
L1645 0.7 L1733 0.8 H1248 4.7 H1341 4.6 
H2339 4.8           L1822 0.9 L1912 1.0 

Dec23     Dec24     Dec25     Dec26         
L0318 1.2 L0411 1.1 L0500 1.1 H0032 4.7 
H1015 4.7 H1106 4.7 H1154 4.7 L0548 1.1 
L1547 1.0 L1637 0.9 L1725 0.8 H1240 4.6 
H2251 4.6 H2343 4.7 
          L1812 0.8

2008

I've left in,for interest, the August 05 anomaly - a double high tide ? 
and October 08, a double low tide? 
There is no predicted 5.1m tide for 2008

     Jan22    Jan23      Jan24      Jan25   
L0410  1.2 L0454  1.0 H0023  4.7 H0103  4.7 
H1108  4.6 H1149  4.7 L0535  1.0 L0614  1.0 
L1633  0.9 L1715  0.7 H1228  4.6 H1306  4.6 
H2342  4.7            L1755  0.7 L1833  0.7 

    Feb07     Feb08      Feb09  
L0440  1.2 L0515  1.1 H0029  4.7
H1131  4.6 H1204  4.7 L0551  1.0
L1658  0.9 L1733  0.8 H1237  4.7
H2357  4.7            L1810  0.7

   Feb10      Feb11      Feb12   
H0102  4.8 H0140  4.8 H0223  4.7 
L0629  0.9 L0708  0.9 L0750  1.0 
H1313  4.7 H1354  4.7 H1441  4.5 
L1847  0.7 L1928  0.7 L2011  0.9 

   Feb20        Feb21    Feb22      Feb23  
L0357  1.2 L0436  1.0 H0001  4.7 H0034  4.7
H1059  4.5 H1133  4.6 L0513  0.9 L0550  0.8
L1616  0.8 L1655  0.7 H1207  4.6 H1241  4.6
H2329  4.7            L1731  0.6 L1806  0.7

    Mar07     Mar08  
L0411  1.0 L0448  0.8
H1100  4.6 H1134  4.7
L1629  0.7 L1707  0.6
H2322  4.8 H2356  4.9

   Mar09      Mar10      Mar11      Mar12   
L0526  0.7 H0032  4.9 H0112  4.8 H0158  4.7 
H1210  4.8 L0605  0.6 L0646  0.6 L0729  0.8 
L1745  0.5 H1249  4.8 H1332  4.7 H1422  4.6 
           L1825  0.5 L1906  0.6 L1951  0.9 

     Mar21 
L0412  0.9 
H1111  4.6 
L1630  0.7 
H2332  4.7 

   Mar23   
H0003  4.7 
L0523  0.8 
H1216  4.5 
L1739  0.7 

British Summer Time starts March 30
   Apr05  
L0439  0.9
H1127  4.6
L1658  0.7
H2348  4.8

New Apr06     Apr07      Apr08      Apr09      Apr10   
L0520  0.7 H0025  4.9 H0106  4.9 H0150  4.8 H0240  4.7 
H1204  4.8 L0600  0.5 L0642  0.5 L0726  0.6 L0813  0.8 
L1739  0.5 H1245  4.8 H1328  4.8 H1416  4.7 H1513  4.5 
           L1820  0.5 L1903  0.5 L1948  0.7 L2036  1.0 

May04       May05     May06      May07      May08      May09  
L0408  0.9 L0452  0.7 H0000  4.8 H0046  4.8 H0136  4.7 H0231  
H1055  4.6 H1139  4.7 L0537  0.6 L0624  0.5 L0711  0.6 L0802  
L1628  0.7 L1713  0.6 H1225  4.7 H1315  4.7 H1411  4.6 H1514  
H2316  4.8            L1759  0.6 L1846  0.7 L1935  0.9 L2028  

 Jun03     Jun04      Jun05      
L0431  0.8 L0521  0.7 H0035  4.7 
H1122  4.5 H1216  4.6 L0612  0.7 
L1654  0.9 L1745  0.9 H1312  4.6 
H2343  4.7            L1836  0.9 

   Aug02  
H0024  4.6
L0552  0.7
H1257  4.7
L1812  0.9

   Aug03      Aug04      Aug05   
H0104  4.6 H0145  4.6 H0226  4.5 
L0633  0.6 L0712  0.6 L0751  0.7 
H1339  4.7 H1422  4.6 H1511  4.6 
L1853  0.9 L1932  0.9 L1528  4.6 
                      H1553  4.6 
                      L2011  1.0 

   Aug18      Aug19      Aug20      Aug21   
H0048  4.6 H0119  4.6 H0152  4.7 H0228  4.6 
L0616  0.8 L0649  0.8 L0724  0.7 L0802  0.8 
H1312  4.7 H1342  4.7 H1415  4.7 H1454  4.7 
L1833  1.0 L1907  1.0 L1943  0.9 L2022  1.0 

    Aug30 
L0453  0.9
H1202  4.7
L1713  1.0
          

   Aug31      Sep01      Sep02   
H0009  4.7 H0044  4.7 H0119  4.7 
L0532  0.7 L0610  0.6 L0646  0.6 
H1236  4.8 H1310  4.8 H1345  4.7 
L1751  0.8 L1829  0.8 L1905  0.9 

     Sep15    Sep16      Sep17      Sep18      Sep19      Sep20  
L0511  0.9 H0015  4.8 H0049  4.8 H0124  4.8 H0205  4.8 H0251  4.7
H1204  4.8 L0546  0.7 L0622  0.6 L0700  0.6 L0739  0.7 L0822  1.0
L1729  1.0 H1235  4.9 H1309  4.9 H1346  4.9 H1427  4.8 H1517  4.6
           L1805  0.8 L1842  0.7 L1920  0.7 L2001  0.9 L2046  1.1

   Sep28       Sep29     Sep30      Oct01   
L0430  1.0 L0508  0.8 H0022  4.7 H0055  4.7 
H1141  4.8 H1210  4.8 L0545  0.8 L0621  0.8 
L1650  1.0 L1728  0.9 H1241  4.8 H1314  4.7 
H2350  4.7            L1804  0.9 L1839  0.9 

   Oct08   
H0621  3.8 
L1054  2.5 
H1211  2.5 
L1305  2.5 
H1845  3.7 


   Oct13        Oct14    Oct15      Oct16      Oct17      Oct18  
L0359  1.2 L0438  0.9 L0517  0.7 H0021  4.9 H0102  4.9 H0147  4.8
H1053  4.7 H1127  4.9 H1203  5.0 L0557  0.7 L0638  0.7 L0721  0.9
L1620  1.1 L1658  0.9 L1738  0.7 H1241  5.0 H1322  5.0 H1409  4.8
H2308  4.7 H2344  4.8            L1818  0.6 L1900  0.7 L1945  0.9

   Oct19   
H0240  4.7 
L0809  1.1 
H1504  4.6 
L2035  1.1 

   Oct27       Oct28     Oct29      Oct30   
L0304  1.2 L0343  1.0 L0421  1.0 L0458  1.1 
H1015  4.7 H1044  4.8 H1116  4.7 H1150  4.7 
L1526  1.2 L1604  1.0 L1641  1.0 L1717  1.1 
H2229  4.6 H2300  4.6 H2335  4.6            

British Summer Time ends 26 October

   Nov11      Nov12        Nov13    Nov14      Nov15  
L0222  1.3 L0306  1.0 L0350  0.9 L0435  0.8 L0522  0.9
H0913  4.7 H0954  4.8 H1036  4.9 H1120  5.0 H1208  4.9
L1446  1.2 L1530  0.9 L1614  0.8 L1700  0.7 L1747  0.7
H2134  4.6 H2216  4.8 H2301  4.9 H2348  4.9           

   Nov16      Nov17   
H0040  4.8 H0139  4.7 
L0610  1.0 L0702  1.2 
H1300  4.8 H1357  4.6 
L1836  0.9 L1929  1.1 

   Dec11        Dec12    Dec13  
L0238  1.2 L0330  1.1 L0421  1.0
H0927  4.7 H1019  4.8 H1110  4.8
L1507  1.1 L1558  0.9 L1649  0.8
H2158  4.6 H2252  4.7 H2345  4.8

   Dec14      Dec15      Dec16   
L0513  1.0 H0039  4.8 H0133  4.7 
H1201  4.8 L0603  1.0 L0653  1.1 
L1739  0.7 H1253  4.7 H1345  4.6 
           L1828  0.8 L1917  0.9

2009

     Jan11    Jan12      Jan13      Jan14      Jan15      Jan16  
L0417  1.1 L0504  0.9 H0029  4.9 H0116  4.8 H0209  4.8 H0335  4.7
H1109  4.7 H1154  4.8 L0549  0.8 L0633  0.8 L0716  0.9 L0758  1.1
L1642  0.7 L1728  0.6 H1239  4.8 H1325  4.7 H1414  4.6 H1511  4.4
H2344  4.8            L1811  0.5 L1854  0.6 L1936  0.7 L2019  1.0

     Feb09    Feb10      Feb11      Feb12      Feb13  
L0406  1.0 L0449  0.8 H0011  4.9 H0051  4.8 H0134  4.8
H1102  4.7 H1141  4.8 L0530  0.7 L0610  0.7 L0649  0.7
L1628  0.6 L1710  0.5 H1221  4.8 H1301  4.7 H1344  4.6
H2333  4.8            L1749  0.4 L1829  0.5 L1907  0.6

    Feb25     Feb26      Feb27      Feb28  
L0445  1.1 L0518  1.0 H0025  4.7 H0055  4.7
H1134  4.6 H1204  4.6 L0550  0.9 L0624  0.9
L1701  0.9 L1733  0.8 H1235  4.7 H1308  4.6
H2356  4.7            L1806  0.7 L1840  0.7


   Mar01   
H0129  4.7 
L0700  0.9 
H1345  4.6 
L1918  0.8 

   Mar09      Mar10        Mar11    Mar12      Mar13      Mar14  
L0307  1.2 L0348  0.9 L0428  0.7 L0507  0.6 H0023  4.8 H0101  4.7
H1011  4.5 H1048  4.7 H1123  4.7 H1159  4.7 L0545  0.6 L0622  0.7
L1527