Hamble Common Camp

Hamble Common is a 22-hectare public park and scheduled monument beside the village of Hamble-le-Rice in Hampshire. It sits between Southampton Water and the River Hamble, with the spit called Hamble Point formed where the river meets the estuary. The land once held an Iron Age settlement and later a Tudor castle, while today it mixes coastal heath, woodland, saltmarsh and mudflats. Eastleigh Borough Council owns and manages the site, which lies within a larger Site of Special Scientific Interest. The varied habitats attract many birds, making it important for wildlife. The Iron Age remains include a linear bank and ditch that once divided the western half from Hamble Point. Experts believe this was a defensive settlement, possibly a promontory fort, and its wet soils have preserved the earthworks. By the 12th century the land belonged to St Andrew Priory, a small Benedictine house whose church still stands in the village. Pannage took place each autumn when pigs fed on fallen acorns, and timber was cut for local houses and shipbuilding. Later centuries saw a castle built between 1542 and 1543 as part of Henry VIII’s coastal defences. This Solent fort had a keep and gun platform surrounded by a moat, though only foundations survive today, visible at low tide. In the 19th century a gun battery was added during the Napoleonic Wars, and in the Second World War two anti-aircraft gun platforms were constructed. One platform still holds a replica Bofors gun, now moved inland to protect it from erosion.