A short stretch of the original Town Quay wall, kept after the area was redeveloped because of what is scratched into its bricks. The wall was the last bit of British soil that hundreds of thousands of Allied soldiers stepped onto before boarding the ships that took them to Normandy in June 1944. Many scratched their names, regiments, and home towns into the soft brick with bayonets or pocket knives.
The graffiti is faint but still legible if you look carefully. Most of the names are American — the US Army was massed in Southampton through the spring of 1944 — though British, Canadian, and other Commonwealth signatures appear too. A small plaque explains the history but the inscriptions speak for themselves. Free; accessible from the path along the old quay.