Stokes Bay (grid ref.:) SZ 590 980 ) (50.782982, -1.163868) is an area of the Solent that lies just south of Gosport, between Portsmouth and Lee-on-the-Solent, Hampshire. There is a shingle beach with views of Ryde and East Cowes on the Isle of Wight to the south and Fawley to the south west. The settlement of Alverstoke is close by.
To the east of Stokes Bay is Fort Gilkicker, which was built in 1871 to guard the headland and the western approaches to Portsmouth Harbour and housed 22 gun emplacements. The bay was used for experiments with submarine mines from 1879-1912. A narrow gauge railway was built from the bay to Fort Blockhouse for these operations, along with a pier.
Fort Gilkicker was used in both world wars to protect Portsmouth and air attacks and fell into disrepair shortly after 1945; it is on the Buildings at Risk Register and support is being sought for its conservation and for an alternative use. [1]
There was also a pier, adjacent to Gosport and Fareham Inshore Rescue Lifeboat station, from which a ferry service ran which was the quickest crossing to the Isle of Wight. The pier had a railway station, opened 6 April 1863, which had a branch line (Stokes Bay Line) from the Fareham to Gosport Line. This railway stopped running services to the pier on 1 November 1915 and sold the land to the Admiralty in 1922. The line was not as popular as the Portsmouth to Ryde crossing although the journey from London was longer than from Portsmouth. Most of the railway line is a cycle path.
The Admiralty used the pier from 1922 to transport munitions and fuel and had a narrow gauge railway line which replaced the branch line. The pier was then used as a torpedo station and fell into disrepair before being demolished in the late 1970s. In June 1944, landing craft embarked from Stokes Bay for France as part of Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of Normandy.
The Solent opposite Stokes Bay is often used by extremely large warships (e.g. US supercarriers) to anchor, as Portsmouth Harbour is not deep enough to berth them. [2] It has also been the site of many fleet reviews, the most recent being to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar in 2005.
To the east is the 9-hole Gosport and Stokes Bay Golf Club. This area of the bay also contains a number of fresh and salt-water margin lagoons and provides a unique habitat for rare flora, including several specimens of the Kermes Oak (A shrub of the Quercus family, native to the Mediterranean).
The Solent is a strait between the Isle of Wight and Great Britain. It is about 20 miles long and varies in width between 2+1⁄2 and 5 mi, although the Hurst Spit which projects 1+1⁄2 mi (2.4 km) into the Solent narrows the sea crossing between Hurst Castle and Colwell Bay to just over 1 mi (1.6 km).
Gosport is a town and non-metropolitan borough on the south coast of Hampshire, South East England. At the 2011 Census, its population was 82,662. Gosport is situated on a peninsula on the western side of Portsmouth Harbour, opposite the city of Portsmouth, to which it is linked by the Gosport Ferry. Gosport lies south-east of Fareham, to which it is linked by a Bus Rapid Transit route and the A32. Until the last quarter of the 20th century, Gosport was a major naval town associated with the defence and supply infrastructure of Her Majesty's Naval Base (HMNB) Portsmouth. As such over the years extensive fortifications were created.
Fort Blockhouse is a military establishment in Gosport, Hampshire, England, and the final version of a complicated site. At its greatest extent in the 19th century, the structure was part of a set of fortifications which encircled much of Gosport. It is surrounded on three sides by water and provides the best view of the entrance to Portsmouth Harbour. It is unique in two respects. Firstly, it was built over five centuries from its original construction as a blockhouse in 1431 to the final addition of submarine base structures in the mid-1960s. Secondly, it is thought to be the oldest fortified position in the United Kingdom that is still in active military use though coastal fortification was abolished nationally in 1956, and it has been used only for medical purposes since 2020.
Fort Gilkicker is a historic Palmerston fort built at the eastern end of Stokes Bay, Gosport, Hampshire England to dominate the key anchorage of Spithead. It was erected between 1863 and 1871 as a semi-circular arc with 22 casemates, to be armed with five twelve-inch guns, seventeen ten-inch guns and five nine-inch guns. The actual installed armament rather differed from this. In 1902 the RML guns were replaced by two 9.2-inch and two six-inch BL guns, and before the First World War the walls were further strengthened with substantial earthwork embankments. The fort was disarmed in 1956 and used for storage until 1999, and is currently in a state of disrepair.
Ryde Pier is an early 19th century pier serving the town of Ryde, on the Isle of Wight, off the south coast of England. It is the world's oldest seaside pleasure pier. Ryde Pier Head railway station is at the sea end of the pier, and Ryde Esplanade railway station at the land end, both served by Island Line trains.
Portsmouth Harbour is a 1,264.2-hectare (3,124-acre) biological Site of Special Scientific Interest between Portsmouth and Gosport in Hampshire. It is a Ramsar site and a Special Protection Area.
Portsmouth Harbour railway station is a railway station in Portsmouth, England. It is situated beside Gunwharf Quays in the city's harbour, and is an important transport terminal, with a bus interchange and ferry services to Gosport and the Isle of Wight. The station currently has four platforms in use: numbered 1, 3, 4 and 5. It is managed by South Western Railway. Platform 2 is no longer in use, having been decommissioned in the early 1990s following major repair and refurbishment work to the pier that the platforms sit on. The station is located adjacent to Portsmouth Harbour between the Gunwharf Quays shopping centre and the Historic Dockyard. Unusually for a mainline railway station, it is built over water as the station was originally constructed on wooden piles, which were later replaced by iron supports.
Fareham railway station is on the West Coastway Line situated about 0.62 miles (1 km) from the town of Fareham in Hampshire, England. It is 84 miles 21 chains (135.6 km) down the line from London Waterloo.
Ryde Pier Head railway station is one of three stations in the town of Ryde on the Isle of Wight. Situated at the end of the town's pier, it is adjacent to the terminal for the Wightlink fast catamaran service connecting the island with Portsmouth on the English mainland. Passengers can use this to connect with the rest of the National Rail network at Portsmouth Harbour station, which is adjacent to the Portsmouth terminal. Through rail tickets for travel via Pier Head station are available to and from other stations on the Isle of Wight. These include travel on the catamaran service to or from Portsmouth as appropriate.
Alverstoke is a small settlement which forms part of the borough of Gosport, on the south coast of Hampshire, England. It stretches east–west from Fort Blockhouse, Haslar to Browndown Battery, and is centred 0.5 miles (0.80 km) east of the shore of Stokes Bay and near the head of a creek which extends a mile westward from Portsmouth Harbour.
Ryde Esplanade railway station serves the town of Ryde on the Isle of Wight, and forms part of the Ryde Transport Interchange. Located on the sea front, it is the most convenient station for the majority of the town. Ryde Esplanade is also the location of the principal ticket office and all lost property facilities for the Island Line. The larger St John's Road station houses the area office and is next to Ryde Traincare Depot, where all in-house maintenance for the line takes place.
There are currently three different ferry companies that operate vessels carrying passengers and, on certain routes, vehicles across the Solent, the stretch of sea that separates the Isle of Wight from mainland England. These are Wightlink, Red Funnel and Hovertravel.
The London and Southampton Railway constructed a first class main line from London to Southampton, opened in 1839. After a name change to the London and South Western Railway (LSWR) it opened a branch from Bishopstoke (later known as Eastleigh to Gosport through Fareham, serving Portsmouth by a ferry crossing, in 1840. The LSWR later extended its line to Portsmouth itself by a branch line from Fareham, and joined forces with a competitor, the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway, meeting it at Cosham; this connection opened in 1848. There was a jointly operated Portsmouth station.
Bembridge Fort is a fort built on the highest point of Bembridge Down close to the village of Bembridge on the Isle of Wight, England. It is one of the many Palmerston Forts built around Portsmouth during the period of the Second French Empire, as a safeguard against a perceived threat of French invasion by Napoleon III.
Gosport Lifeboat Station is a volunteer-operated independent lifeboat station charity located in the village of Alverstoke on the peninsula of Gosport in the English county of Hampshire. Owned and operated by Gosport and Fareham Inshore Rescue Service (GAFIRS), it operates free lifeboat services in the Solent from Portsmouth Harbour to Titchfield Haven, on the approaching shores of Southampton Water. GAFIRS is a charity registered in England and Wales (1159681).
The Stokes Bay line was a short railway branch line in Hampshire, England, near Gosport. Associated with a new pier, it was intended to give direct and easy access from trains to steamers to the Isle of Wight in comparison to the conventional route through Portsmouth, which required a road transport connection though the town. Railway operation to the Stokes Bay pier started in 1863.
The Funtley Deviation was a 2-mile long double track railway opened as a single line in 1904 and as a double line in 1906 to provide an alternative to the 1841 railway line north of Fareham which traversed the precarious Fareham tunnel. Unfortunately the deviation line suffered from stability problems of its own and it was eventually closed on 6 May 1973, in favour of the original route, and is now a nature walk with a small car park at the Highlands Road end. The route south of Highlands Road was sold for housing.
Defence Munitions Gosport is a defence munitions site which is situated on the south western shores of Portsmouth harbour, southeast of Fareham in Hampshire. The site occupies about 470 acres. DM Gosport facilities include two Integrated Weapon Complexes (IWCs), 24 processing rooms and 26 explosives stores. The site employs some 270 staff.
The Portsmouth and Ryde Joint Railway was a group of three railway lines in Southern England that were jointly owned and operated by the London and South Western Railway and the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway. The main line was between Cosham and Portsmouth Harbour; there was a branch from Fratton to East Southsea; and a line between Ryde Pier Head and Ryde St John's Road. The last-named section was isolated from the others, being on the Isle of Wight. The first section of line opened in 1847 and the last in 1885; the Southsea branch closed in 1914 but all of the other routes have since been electrified and remain open.
