TWELVE STREETS IN SOUTHAMPTON

 

TWELVE STREETS IN SOUTHAMPTON  

 

There are plenty of bars here,

true enough,

but none of them

below road, in a cellar.

If I'm caught one more time

in Astral Weeks,

that makes sense:

Southampton’s where I heard the album first. 

The curses don’t surprise me here:

the minimal florality

is a particular

effing disgrace.

Kids from the Flowers Estate

were always said to be tough cases.

Luckily for local teachers

no roads were named for beasts of prey.

       

The closest we get to Jupiter

may be more than 400 million miles,

but that’s not very far

by the standards of deep space.

  

You thought the Nile

was a river in Africa?

You need to take account of global warming

and widespread displacement…

I spy

with my little eye

something beginning with ‘R’…

or do I mean ‘P’?

  

From here you can get

to every other street in the city.

Just as, I concede,

You can from every other street.

The city’s roads celebrate

23 other saints…

but why deny Denys the glory

as their only cephalophore?

Plenty of people

have had a street named after them

but maybe only Mary has doubled up

with a porno mag.  

 

Some joker told me

the top of this hill was known as witts end,

but - having run up it -

I wasn't laughing.

This is a good place

for a child to be father of the man:

it backs right onto the explorative potential

of St James’ Park.

 

On the Roads

I have taken the list here as defining which streets are in Southampton.

The best-known of my Southampton streets is Above Bar: right in the centre and a hub for pubs and shops. Everyone calls it ‘Above Bar’, so I was a little surprised to see that the sign actually says ‘Above Bar Street’. The term was originally applied to the district lying north of the Bargate, i.e. outside the walled city. I guess I should now get my hair cut at Above Barbers.

Cypress Avenue: In ‘Cyprus Avenue’, from Van Morrison’s 1968 masterpiece ‘Astral Weeks’, he meditates on his adolescence in Belfast, pivoting on walking up the eponymous street: ‘I'm caught one more time / Up on Cyprus Avenue’. Southampton’s equivalent is named for the tree rather than the country - but it all sounds the same in a song. Curiously, I suppose, I didn’t hear ‘Astral Weeks’ until I was in my mid-thirties, shortly after moving to the city.

Effingham Gardens in Sholing is, I suppose, named after the village near Guildford - who knows why? Aside from the unusual name, it has no distinguishing features. 

Honeysuckle Road: All the roads on this estate, built as social housing in the 1930's,  are named for flowers: Begonia, Bluebell, Carnation, Daisy, Daffodil, Honeysuckle, Iris, Laburnum, Lobelia, Lupin, Primrose, Pansy and Violet Roads. It had a bad reputation in the 1980-90’s, less so now, and it is conveniently placed right opposite Southampton University.

Jupiter Close is part of a celestially-named block of roads in Lordshill, along with Andromeda Road and Gemini, Mercury, Orion and Saturn Closes. The photograph shows the less-than-heavenly site of the themed wall paintings that introduce the estate. Jupiter is, indeed, close: about 45 light minutes from Earth.  It’s 1,344 light years to the nebula of Orion, and the Gemini stars are 2,800 light years away. Even they might be reckoned comparatively close:  Andromeda is over 2.5 million light years away - and the observable universe, doubtless only a small proportion of the whole, is some 47 billion light years across - and the universe continues to expand...  

Nile Road, along with Omdurman Road and Khartoum Road, forms an early 20th century development of three streets in Portwood, near Southampton Common - all taking their names from the history of British imperialism in Egypt. Having lived in Omdurman Road, I have often navigated Nile Road, but never in a boat. 

All I can point out about Pointout Road – a crescent in Bassett – is that it seems to be the only street in Britain so named. By way of comparison, there are about a dozen Nile Roads.

Portal Road is, in fact, an unlikely starting point: an obscure street in Totton, a no-through end to several roads leading only to housing, its sole sign largely hidden by vegetation. But it does have what might be a portal box…

St Denys Road runs down towards St Denys Railway Station: not many streets have a station named after them, given that you can hardly count ‘Station Approach’. St Denis / Denys was a 3rd century Bishop of Paris, martyred for his faith by decapitation. He is said to have picked up his head and walked several miles while preaching a sermon on repentance: carrying your own head is the action of a cephalophore.

Whitehouse Gardens: ‘Whitehouse’ was a British pornographic magazine, founded by David Sullivan, published from 1974-2008. Although evidently named as a rebuke to the anti-pornography campaigner Mary Whitehouse (1910-2001), it contained a disclaimer saying that the name had nothing to do with her. I dare say the same would have been said by whoever named the street, which is near Southampton's Western Docks.

Witts Hill is a long and suitably steep road in Bitterne. 

Wordsworth Road: ‘The Child is father of the Man’ comes from Wordsworth’s 1802 poem, ‘My Heart Leaps Up’. The six-acre greenery of St James’ Park in Shirley – from which the second image is shot - incorporates extensive play and sports facilities.