Seeing the city from this position shows the juxtaposition of surviving historical landmarks and buildings that have since disappeared into local memory.

Standing proud as the prime architectural landmark of the city is the Civic Centre. 

Views from Marlands crane – April 1990 054 (Image: Echo)

Its splendid Portland stone and famous clock tower appear very much as they do now, gazing out upon busy streets, double-decker buses and the bordering parklands in a way that would be very familiar today.

Pan around the skyline, though, and glaring gaps between this and a modern city are evident. 

Among the largest of such sentimental scenes is the vast Toys ‘R’ Us superstore, with its jagged frontage and sprawling surface car park. 

This elbowed frontage was once the weekend highlight of generations of local kids — although the large shell is still present, the store has been closed for many years now.

The pictures also capture the hard-edged, stepped concrete profile of Wyndham Court, a piece of brutalist architecture that is unequivocally a part of the citys built fabric, even though not everyone likes it. 

But remarkable too is what isn’t there – Westquay. 

Views from Marlands crane – April 1990 054 (Image: Echo)

This section of the massive shopping centre that now dominates the city’s modern retail life is entirely missing. 

Instead, we get a rare poke around this industrial landscape in the years before it was bulldozed and rebuilt into the retail nirvana we know today.

Behind the railway lines and multi-storey car parks, the industrial life blood of the city is on full show. 

The waterfront and docks extend into the distance with the twin chimneys of the old power station on the other side of the water forming a skyline silhouette that has long since disappeared.

As the camera sweeps down to the waterfront, the magnitude of the city’s industrial past is jaw dropping – most notably the vast Pirelli cableworks. 

A vast site sprawling beneath the old city walls these warren of factory bulk were one of Southampton’s biggest employers – and one of its defining sights – for decades. 

Views from Marlands crane – April 1990 054 (Image: Echo)

In the foreground lies the reason for this view; The Marlands itself coming into view. 

Covered in scaffolding – including a large “Wimpey” construction banner – the bare bones and newly-installed roofs of the shopping centre get ready to change the streetscape in perpetuity. 

These images catch Southampton in a rare state of transition, perfectly divided between its  mid-century configuration and the modern commercial centre it was fast becoming.