Medieval Merchant's House

The Medieval Merchant's House
58 French Street
Former names	Mrs Collins' Lodging-House; the Bull's Head public house
General information
Type	Timber-framed
Location	Southampton, England
Address	58 French Street
Coordinates	50°53′55″N 1°24′19″W / 50.89854°N 1.4052°W / 50.89854; -1.4052Coordinates: 50°53′55″N 1°24′19″W / 50.89854°N 1.4052°W / 50.89854; -1.4052
Construction started	1290
Renovated	1983–5
Owner	English Heritage

The Medieval Merchant's House is a restored late-13th-century building in Southampton, Hampshire, England. Built in about 1290 by John Fortin, a prosperous merchant, the house survived many centuries of domestic and commercial use largely intact. German bomb damage in 1940 revealed the medieval interior of the house, and in the 1980s it was restored to resemble its initial appearance and placed in the care of English Heritage, to be run as a tourist attraction. The house is built to a medieval right-angle, narrow plan design, with an undercroft to store wine at a constant temperature, and a first-storey bedchamber that projects out into the street to add additional space. The building is architecturally significant because, as historian Glyn Coppack highlights, it is "the only building of its type to survive substantially as first built"; it is a Grade I listed building and scheduled monument.

The Medieval Merchant's House was built in about 1290 on French Street, Southampton, then a major port and a large provincial town with a population of around 5,000, grown rich from the trade with England's continental possessions in Europe. The area of Southampton around French Street had been re-planned earlier in the century, reducing the numbers of farm animals kept in and around the houses, driving poorer merchants and craftsmen into the less desirable northern half of the city, and creating a quarter of large, impressive houses, often built in stone with tiled roofs. The original house was designed for use by John Fortin, a prosperous wine merchant, with a vaulted cellar for holding stock, a shop at the front of the property and accommodation for the family; much of it was built in stone, but it featured a timber front, a fashionable design for the period. At least 60 other houses similar to the Medieval Merchant's House were built in Southampton at around the same time.

By the 1330s, Southampton's prosperity was in a slow decline. In 1338 there was a successful French attack on the town, during which various buildings were burned and castle was damaged. The house may have been one of those damaged in the raid, as the south-western corner of the building collapsed around that time and had to be quickly rebuilt; other alterations, including the addition of a fireplace, may have been carried out at the same time. Southampton's economy collapsed in the aftermath of the attacks and never fully recovered. The character of French Street began to change, as many houses were sub-divided or redeveloped to fit in more buildings. The Medieval Merchant's House ceased to be used by major merchants and by 1392 appears to have been rented out to tenants by Thomas Fryke and John Barflet, the latter a descendent of John Fortin, for whom the house was originally built.