Girded round by high embattled walls, flanked with numerous towers, all in good repair, and well ordnanced, old Southampton had a proud and defiant look, especially when viewed from the water. Within the walls, situated on an elevated point on the north-west, stood the castle, now totally destroyed, the donjon of which, erected at the time of the Conquest, if not before, commanded with its guns all the approaches to the harbour, as well as the country to the north. This strongly fortified town possessed no less than eight gates, besides posterns. It was defended on the north and east by a moat of extraordinary width and depth, crossed by drawbridges connected with the gates, and on the south and west by the sea, which washed the foot of its walls; and it contained many large and important mansions, amongst which may be noted the antique palace of Canute, besides several fine churches, hospitals, religious establishments, conduits, and great storehouses, together with a long and goodly street, described by old Leland, in his Itinerary, “as one of the fairest streets that is in any town of all England.” From the summit of the castle magnificent views were obtained of the lovely Isle of Wight in the distance; of the vast woody region known as the New Forest; of the broad estuary spread out like a lake before it, almost always thronged with craft, and sometimes, as now, filled with larger vessels; of the ruthlessly-despoiled but still beauteous abbey of Netley, embosomed in its groves; of the course of the Itchen, on the one side, and of the Test on the other; or, looking inland towards the north of a marshy tract, caused by the overflowing waters of the Itchen; of more marshes on the low ground further on, then more forest scenery, with here and then a village and an ancient castellated mansion, until the prospect was terminated by Saint Catherine’s and Saint Giles’s hills near Winchester. Situated at the point of a piece of high land lying between the confluence of the two rivers just mentioned, namely, the Itchen and the Test, old Southampton was completely insulated by the deep ditch connecting these streams on the north, and continued along the east side of the walls. Without the walls, on the east, lay an extensive suburb, occupying the site of a still older town, which had been sacked and in a great part burnt by French and Genoese pirates in the time of Edward III.—a disaster that caused the second town to be as strongly fortified as we have described it.