At the junction of High Street and South Methven Street was the old West Port, one of the many entrances to the city in medieval times. Traders would enter her to go to the many markets held within the walls. A modern information board entitled Going to Market (Panel 9 of the Perth Medieval Trail) can be found beside the newly redeveloped St Paul’s Church open-air space.
This ring of metal markers in South Street at its junction with South Methven Street marks the site of the South Street Port, one of the historic routes though the medieval town defences. From the South Street Port, one could proceed down Hospital Street, into St Leonard’s Street, down into Craigie, and on to Edinburgh. This route was blocked by the 19th-century insertion of the railway. The present County Place, York Place and Glasgow Road is a nineteenth-century insertion. The present Princes Street and Edinburgh Road is an 18th-century insertion. This is clearer on Rutherford’s map of 1774. The metal markers also indicate the site of The Necessary, a circular cast-iron public convenience built directly over the Canal Crescent branch of the town lade, which continued the line of the town’s defensive ditch as a stone culvert. The culvert still exists underground. The Necessary appears on a number of early photographs of Perth, but was taken away as an obstruction to traffic, and perhaps also as an offence to public decency. [information supplied by David Bowler, PSNS]