Gosport: the back story

About Gosport: the back story

By the ULTIMATE Brighton Editorial Team

Editor-in-Chief: Jai Michael

Gosport grew up on the western shore of Portsmouth Harbour as the Navy’s supply town: Royal Clarence Yard brewed its beer and baked its biscuit, Priddy’s Hard stored its gunpowder, and forts such as Brockhurst guarded the harbour from the land.

From the deck of the Gosport Ferry, four minutes out of Portsmouth, you see the two towns side by side: the Spinnaker Tower and the Dockyard on one shore, Gosport’s waterfront and marinas on the other. For centuries the second shore served the first.

Across the water

The Gosport Ferry crosses the harbour in about four minutes, every 15 minutes through the day, from the pontoon by Portsmouth Harbour station to South Street in Gosport, by the bus station and the High Street.

Check opening times and trains on the official sites before you travel.

Beer, biscuit and gunpowder

Royal Clarence Yard grew from a private brewery into the Navy’s main supplier of beer and biscuit, and took its name in 1831 from the Duke of Clarence, later William IV. Queen Victoria used a private station inside the yard for her journeys to Osborne. Up the harbour, the magazines of Priddy’s Hard stored the fleet’s gunpowder; today they are Explosion, the museum of naval firepower.

Forts against invasion

Fort Brockhurst is one of a ring of forts built in the 1850s and 1860s to protect Portsmouth and its harbour from a French invasion. Largely unaltered, it keeps its parade ground, gun ramps and moated keep. On the shore at Stokes Bay, No. 2 Battery now houses the Diving Museum.

Beneath the waves

At Haslar, the Royal Navy Museums’ submarine museum lets you board HMS Alliance and see HMS Holland 1, the Navy’s first submarine, from 1901.

Gosport today

Gosport is a town of marinas and sailing, with Haslar Marina facing the Historic Dockyard across the water.

Our advice: take the ferry over from Portsmouth, walk along the waterfront to the Submarine Museum, and come back as the lights come on across the harbour.

Opening hours, prices and seasonal openings change, so please check with Gosport: the back story before you go.