There are many people to thank for this.
Going back to 1228 Nicholas de Sirlie, at a meeting in Southampton Castle, renounced all rights to pasture lands east of Hill Lane in favour of the Burgesses of Southampton and thus the magnificent Common came into being and its initial boundaries defined.
Until the middle of the 19th century, citizens enjoyed grazing rights on common land on the marsh outside the eastern walls and on the Lammas fields to the north of the Bargate.
Concerned by the changes brought by the docks and the railway and the loss of the rural feel of the town, the Borough Council used the 1844 Marsh Act to drain the marsh and sell the land to builders.