Southampton’s High Street could easily be called the city’s Street of Destiny as it has played such a prominent part in local history.

According to records compiled in the 12th century, this area, especially the lower part, once had the French name, Rue Englysche following the Norman conquest.

By the time of King Henry VIII, the name “High Street” was being used widely in the town, although references to English Street were still being made at the end of the 18th century.

From the earliest days there has always been a constant procession along this street of the good and the great, whether its royalty, figures of state or high ranking clerics.

Local people always considered it to be one of the finest thoroughfares in the country, before so much damaged was caused by the Blitz of the Second World War.

The prosperous merchants and city fathers of medieval days paced this street, clad in their ample furred robes of crimson, violet, and russet, as they upheld the dignity of their office.

Seafarers, from all nations were a common sight wearing colourful costumes from the Mediterranean and the Middle East, roamed the area in groups around Holy Rood church.

Sometimes their rough behaviour would turn into near riots, before the seamen were arrested and taken for a stay in the Bargate jailhouse.

Daily, the heavy carriers’ carts, laden with goods brought by ships from afar, would rumble up the cobbled street, pass under the Bargate, over the drawbridge and away along Above Bar to distant inland cities.

During the 17th century the High Street even received praise from the pen of the indefatigable diarist, Samuel Pepys.

On April 26, 1662, Pepys arrived in Southampton from Portsmouth and wrote: “This towne is one most gallant street and is walled round the stone.’’ While in Southampton, Pepys dined with the mayor, recording: “We had sturgeon of our own catching.’’ Pepys seems to have enjoyed his time in Southampton, the only thing which troubled him was “the badness of my hat, which I borrowed to save my beaver.’’ Yet only three years later the “gallant street’’ had declined as the plague struck at the heart of Southampton and desolation reigned for a long time.

Nearby, Bugle Street is one of the city’s most historic areas, which was once called Bole Street or Bull Street, the name Bugle does not come into common use until Georgian times.

Tragedy befell this street when on October 4, 1338, French and Sicilian raiders ransacked and burned houses in the road.

Above Bar or Bove Barr Street, as it was once called, was rural in character and bordered by fields and market gardens, with a few scattered cottages, until the days when Southampton shined with social brilliance as a spa in Georgian days.

Then it was that the town developed rapidly beyond the old walls.

Spa Road, which once skirted the former offices of the Daily Echo in Above Bar, lead to the then new, Spa Gardens, with a fountain of, what was said to be, of “curative waters’’.

East Street also has an ancient history as it used to be spanned by East Gate, which was nearly of the same age as the Bargate.

The street passed over the moat and was the chief route out of the town eastward, leading to Cross House Hard and to the ferry over the River Itchen.