View of Southampton from the east across the River Itchen

Southampton has been an important port since Norman times. In the Middle Ages it grew rich trading with France, Portugal, Venice and Genoa, but trade declined in the late sixteenth century. By Thomas Luny's day Southampton was a fashionable bathing place, with stucco terraces and summer villas on the outskirts.

Luny concentrates on the historic heart of Southampton rather than showing the nineteenth century developments. This view shows the city from the east across the Itchen, with the famous town walls silhouetted on the horizon. The town was heavily fortified against French raids in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries; many of these walls survive in a remarkable state of preservation.