Portsmouth in 1545 (from the Cowdray Engraving)

If I put you in a time machine and took you back to Portsmouth in 1545, the first thing you would probably notice would be the smell. It would have stank!

The houses were all crowded together inside the city walls and the narrow streets would be covered in the droppings of horses and dogs. People would also empty their chamber pots out of upstairs windows into the streets below.