Portsmouth Harbour is a biological

Site of Special Scientific Interest A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle of ...

between

Portsmouth Portsmouth ( ) is a port and city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. The city of Portsmouth has been a unitary authority since 1 April 1997 and is administered by Portsmouth City Council. Portsmouth is the most dens ...

and

Gosport 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 t ...

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial county, ceremonial and non-metropolitan county, non-metropolitan counties of England, county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English citi ...

. It is a

Ramsar site A Ramsar site is a wetland site designated to be of international importance under the Ramsar Convention,8 ha (O) *** Permanent 8 ha (P) *** Seasonal Intermittent < 8 ha(Ts) **

Special Protection Area A Special Protection Area (SPA) is a designation under the European Union Directive on the Conservation of Wild Birds. Under the Directive, Member States of the European Union (EU) have a duty to safeguard the habitats of migratory birds and cert ...

It is a large

natural harbour A harbor (American English), harbour (British English; see spelling differences), or haven is a sheltered body of water where ships, boats, and barges can be docked. The term ''harbor'' is often used interchangeably with ''port'', which is a ...

in Hampshire, England. Geographically it is a

ria A ria (; gl, ría) is a coastal inlet formed by the partial submergence of an unglaciated river valley. It is a drowned river valley that remains open to the sea. Definitions Typically rias have a dendritic, treelike outline although they ca ...

: formerly it was the valley of a stream flowing from

Portsdown Portsdown is a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest on Portsdown Hill, on the northern outskirts of Portsmouth in Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in western South East E ...

into the

Solent The Solent ( ) is a strait between the Isle of Wight and Great Britain. It is about long and varies in width between , although the Hurst Spit which projects into the Solent narrows the sea crossing between Hurst Castle and Colwell Bay t ...

. At its north end is

Portchester Castle Portchester Castle is a medieval fortress that was developed within the walls of the Roman Saxon Shore fort of Portus Adurni at Portchester, to the east of Fareham in Hampshire. The keep was probably built in the late 11th century as a ba ...

, of

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...

origin and the first fortress built to protect the harbour. Portsmouth harbour as seen from gosport

The mouth of the harbour provides access to the

. It is best known as the home of the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

HMNB Portsmouth His Majesty's Naval Base, Portsmouth (HMNB Portsmouth) is one of three operating bases in the United Kingdom for the Royal Navy (the others being HMNB Clyde and HMNB Devonport). Portsmouth Naval Base is part of the city of Portsmouth; it is lo ...

. Because of its strategic location on the south coast of England, protected by the natural defence of the

Isle of Wight The Isle of Wight ( ) is a county in the English Channel, off the coast of Hampshire, from which it is separated by the Solent. It is the largest and second-most populous island of England. Referred to as 'The Island' by residents, the Isle of ...

, it has since the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

been the home to England's (and later Britain's) navy. The narrow entrance, and the forts surrounding it gave it a considerable advantage of being virtually impregnable to attack from the sea. Before the fortifications were built the French burned Portsmouth in 1338. During the civil war parliamentary forces were able to carry out a successful cutting-out expedition within the harbour and capture the six-gunned ''Henrietta Marie''. In modern times, the harbour has become a major commercial ferry port, with regular services to

St Malo Saint-Malo (, , ; Gallo: ; ) is a historic French port in Ille-et-Vilaine, Brittany, on the English Channel coast. The walled city had a long history of piracy, earning much wealth from local extortion and overseas adventures. In 1944, the Alli ...

, France,

The Channel Islands The Channel Islands ( nrf, Îles d'la Manche; french: îles Anglo-Normandes or ''îles de la Manche'') are an archipelago in the English Channel, off the French coast of Normandy. They include two Crown Dependencies: the Bailiwick of Jersey, ...

and the Isle of Wight. There is a

passenger ferry A ferry is a ship, watercraft or amphibious vehicle used to carry passengers, and sometimes vehicles and cargo, across a body of water. A passenger ferry with many stops, such as in Venice, Italy, is sometimes called a water bus or water taxi ...

. It is also a major area for leisure sailing. In 2006 the

Gunwharf Quays Gunwharf Quays is a shopping centre located in the Portsea area of the city of Portsmouth in England. It was constructed in the early 21st century on the site of what had once been HM Gunwharf, Portsmouth. This was one of several such facilitie ...

development, including the

Spinnaker Tower The Spinnaker Tower is a landmark observation tower in Portsmouth, England. It is the centrepiece of the redevelopment of Portsmouth Harbour, which was supported by a National Lottery grant. The tower's design was chosen by Portsmouth reside ...

, was opened on the site of HMS ''Vernon'' (a former naval shore establishment).

Islands

Portsmouth Harbour contains a number of islands. Whale Island is the home of the training establishment .

Horsea Island Horsea Island was an island located off the northern shore of Portsmouth Harbour, England; gradually subsumed by reclamation, it is now connected to the mainland. Horsea falls within the city of Portsmouth and was wholly owned by the Ministr ...

is now connected to the mainland due to land reclamation. It is also part of HMS ''Excellent''. Pewit Island is a small island located in the north western section of Portsmouth Harbour. Closer to the harbour entrance on the Gosport side is

Burrow Island Burrow Island (also known as 'Rat Island') is a tidal island in Gosport, United Kingdom. The island overlooks Portsmouth harbour. At low tide a spit connects it with Priddy's Hard. It has been suggested that the name dates from the 17th centu ...

, also known as Rat Island.

Camber Dock

Camber Dock is the oldest developed part of the Portsmouth Harbour complex. Lying within the historic area of

Old Portsmouth Old Portsmouth is a district of the city of Portsmouth. It is the area covered by the original medieval town of Portsmouth as planned by Jean de Gisors. It is situated in the south west corner of Portsea Island. The area contains many historic bu ...

, it is part of

Portsmouth Point Portsmouth Point, or "Spice Island", is part of Old Portsmouth in Portsmouth, Hampshire, on the southern coast of England. The name Spice Island comes from the area's seedy reputation, as it was known as the "Spice of Life". Men were easily found ...

that lies outside the original fortified boundaries of Portsmouth. After improvements in the

King James's and Landport Gates __NOTOC__ King James's and Landport Gates are two English Heritage gateways in Portsmouth, Hampshire, England. Original purpose Earthen ramparts protecting the land side of the port containing munitions, international goods storage, warehouses, ...

and the areas military defences, civilian building of dockside storage and ancillary servicing facilities began from 1590. With major ships anchored at

Spithead Spithead is an area of the Solent and a roadstead off Gilkicker Point in Hampshire, England. It is protected from all winds except those from the southeast. It receives its name from the Spit, a sandbank stretching south from the Hampshire ...

, from the 18th century the surrounding area became noted as a popular but lewd area for visiting sailors. With advent of bigger steam powered ships, the physical restrictions of Camber Dock meant that it was bypassed for the larger capacity of the newer developed Portsmouth Harbour. Resultantly, Camber Quay became the home of the local fishing fleet, which it still remains today, together with the adjacent dockside development of the commercial

fish market A fish market is a marketplace for selling fish and fish products. It can be dedicated to wholesale trade between fishermen and fish merchants, or to the sale of seafood to individual consumers, or to both. Retail fish markets, a type of wet ma ...

. Today it also has a series of visiting berths for non-commercial craft. In 2015, the

Land Rover BAR INEOS Britannia is a British sailing team that is the challenger of record for the 37th America's Cup. The team was established in 2012 with the ambition of winning the America's Cup for Great Britain and to 'bring the cup home' to the Un ...

yacht racing headquarters was completed.

Portsmouth ferry port

Launch

Portsmouth investigated three locations for a ferry port at the end of the 1960s and the current location was chosen. The choice was based on cost and the likely benefit of cross-channel ferries. The site was at the end of the newly constructed M275. Originally built with two berths the site opened in 1976 with the Earl William (

Sealink Sealink was a ferry company based in the United Kingdom from 1970 to 1984, operating services to France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Isle of Man, Channel Islands, Isle of Wight and Ireland. Ports served by the company included: Dover, Folkesto ...

) running to the

Channel Islands The Channel Islands ( nrf, Îles d'la Manche; french: îles Anglo-Normandes or ''îles de la Manche'') are an archipelago in the English Channel, off the French coast of Normandy. They include two Crown Dependencies: the Bailiwick of Jersey, ...

, the Viking Victory (Townsend Thoresen) running to Cherbourg and the Brittany Ferries running to Saint-Malo.

Expansion

All three operators increased their usage of the port during the mid-eighties, which led to expansion. An additional two berths were built, both twin tier. Berth 2 was filled and a new Berth 2 built, which was mainly used by the Earl Granville (Sealink) running to both the Channel Islands and Cherbourg, Berth 1 become more tight to use and the newly roll-on, roll-off Commodore Shipping used it for their Channel Island freight services. Berth 3 was left incomplete while Berth 4 was finished. This was generally considered the Brittany Ferries berth. When Berth 3 was finished Townsend Thoresen moved their passenger operation entirely from

Southampton Southampton () is a port city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. It is located approximately south-west of London and west of Portsmouth. The city forms part of the South Hampshire built-up area, which also covers Po ...

to Portsmouth. Shortly afterwards, Townsend Thoresen bought P&O (Normandy Ferries) and relocated them to Portsmouth. The old Southampton Ferry port was then converted to a marina. The continued use of Portsmouth saw the creation of Berth 5 and the final stage of development. Portsmouth had seen additional ferry companies Channel Island Ferries,

Hoverspeed Hoverspeed was a ferry company that operated on the English Channel from 1981 until 2005. It was formed in 1981 by the merger of Seaspeed and Hoverlloyd. Its last owners were Sea Containers; the company ran a small fleet of two high-speed Sea ...

and Truckline and new routes to

Caen Caen (, ; nrf, Kaem) is a commune in northwestern France. It is the prefecture of the department of Calvados. The city proper has 105,512 inhabitants (), while its functional urban area has 470,000,Santander Santander may refer to: Places * Santander, Spain, a port city and capital of the autonomous community of Cantabria, Spain * Santander Department, a department of Colombia * Santander State, former state of Colombia * Santander de Quilichao, a m ...

and

Bilbao ) , motto = , image_map = , mapsize = 275 px , map_caption = Interactive map outlining Bilbao , pushpin_map = Spain Basque Country#Spain#Europe , pushpin_map_caption ...

. With the advent of the

Channel Tunnel The Channel Tunnel (french: Tunnel sous la Manche), also known as the Chunnel, is a railway tunnel that connects Folkestone (Kent, England, UK) with Coquelles ( Hauts-de-France, France) beneath the English Channel at the Strait of Dover. ...

and the abolition of

Duty Free A duty-free shop (or store) is a retail outlet whose goods are exempt from the payment of certain local or national taxes and duties, on the requirement that the goods sold will be sold to travelers who will take them out of the country, wh ...

most of the companies disappeared. Sealink merged their Channel Island operations with the newly created Channel Island Ferries to create British Channel Island Ferries. They then later relocated operations to

Poole Poole () is a large coastal town and seaport in Dorset, on the south coast of England. The town is east of Dorchester and adjoins Bournemouth to the east. Since 1 April 2019, the local authority is Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Counc ...

before merging into Condor Ferries. Sealink operated to Cherbourg with the Earl Granville for several further years until the Earl Granville violently ran aground off Cherbourg. Hoverspeed ran the HOVERSPEED GB from Portsmouth to Cherbourg intermittently one summer – often the "new ferry of the future" was out of action and the now repaired but ageing Earl Granville would step into the breach – much to passenger annoyance.

Decline

By 2000 Portsmouth only had ferries from Brittany Ferries, Condor and P&O. P&O replaced the ageing Super Vikings with a Ro-pax ship and a Sea-Cat on the Portsmouth-Cherbourg route, but by 2006 P&O had all but closed its operation from Portsmouth but retained the route to Bilbao and Portsmouth became a quiet port again. After P&O Ferries withdrawal from the Le Havre route in September 2005 a new company stepped in to replace them with LD Lines running one sailing a day to

Le Havre Le Havre (, ; nrf, Lé Hâvre ) is a port city in the Seine-Maritime department in the Normandy region of northern France. It is situated on the right bank of the estuary of the river Seine on the Channel southwest of the Pays de Caux, very cl ...

with the Norman Spirit. The Spanish ferry company Acciona tried briefly in 2006 to compete on the northern Spain route to Bilbao using their ferry the Fortuny, but it lasted 3 months before closure.

Today

Today, Brittany Ferries operates a three times daily service to Caen, daily to St Malo, daily to Le Havre and offers a high-speed seasonal service to Cherbourg, which runs daily. On Friday, Saturday & Sunday it is increased to twice daily. Brittany Ferries also has up to six sailings a week to Spain with two departures to Bilbao and four to Santander. Condor Ferries have two sailings a day to the Channel Islands with a morning sailing to the Islands with the passenger and freight ferry Commodore Clipper and an evening sailing to the islands with the freight-only ferry Commodore Goodwill. The sole remaining P&O service to Bilbao ceased in September 2010 but has since been replaced by Brittany Ferries as of April 2011 with two sailings a week using their modern and fast ferry Cap Finistere which can make the trip from Portsmouth to Bilbao in 24 hours with a top cruising speed of 27 knots. On 10 May 2011 the New Terminal building at the newly renamed Portsmouth International Port' was opened by Vince Cable MP. As well as the regular ferry sailings there were 45 cruise ships that called at the port during 2018 with several of them being turnaround calls. Regular calls are undertaken by CMV Cruises, Crystal Cruises, Hapag Lloyd, Phoenix Reisen, Saga Cruises, Viking Ocean Cruises, Windstar Cruises. The harbour was dredged in 2016 in preparation of the arrival of and , the Navy's first

supercarriers An aircraft carrier is a warship that serves as a seagoing airbase, equipped with a full-length flight deck and facilities for carrying, arming, deploying, and recovering aircraft. Typically, it is the capital ship of a fleet, as it allows a ...

, with regular maintenance dredging taking place at various times of the year.

Site of Special Scientific Interest

Most of the harbour is composed of intertidal mudflats and

cordgrass ''Spartina'' is a taxon of plants in the grass family, frequently found in coastal salt marshes. Its species are commonly known as cordgrass or cord-grass, and are native to the coasts of the Atlantic Ocean in western and southern Europe, north ...

marshes, and they have abundant

benthic The benthic zone is the ecological region at the lowest level of a body of water such as an ocean, lake, or stream, including the sediment surface and some sub-surface layers. The name comes from ancient Greek, βένθος (bénthos), meaning "t ...

fauna which provide food for birds. It is of national importance for dark-bellied Brent geese and for three species of waders,

grey plover The grey plover or black-bellied plover (''Pluvialis squatarola'') is a large plover breeding in Arctic regions. It is a long-distance migrant, with a nearly worldwide coastal distribution when not breeding. Taxonomy The grey plover was forma ...

, black-tailed godwit and

dunlin The dunlin (''Calidris alpina'') is a small wader, formerly sometimes separated with the other "stints" in the genus ''Erolia''. The English name is a dialect form of "dunling", first recorded in 1531–1532. It derives from ''dun'', "dull brown ...

Proposed Tunnel

A tunnel crossing the mouth of the Harbour between Gosport and Portsmouth was proposed in 1941, which would have allowed pedestrian traffic while doubling as a subterranean air raid shelter for residents on both sides. This proposal came during

the Blitz The Blitz was a German bombing campaign against the United Kingdom in 1940 and 1941, during the Second World War. The term was first used by the British press and originated from the term , the German word meaning 'lightning war'. The Germa ...

, which saw Portsmouth and Gosport bombed heavily. The proposal, termed the "Kearney Tube" after the Australian engineer conducting the initial study, evolved into a proposal for rail link tunnel in 1942, but the project was never constructed. In 1999, a study was undertaken by the Light Rail Transit Association in regard to a proposed tunnel crossing to alleviate traffic congestion in the area, particularly Gosport. Of three construction methods examined, an

immersed tube An immersed tube (or immersed tunnel) is a kind of undersea tunnel composed of segments, constructed elsewhere and floated to the tunnel site to be sunk into place and then linked together. They are commonly used for road and rail crossings of r ...

was deemed to be the most effective, as it would not necessitate closing the harbour for over a year, but rather a series of shorter closures of around 24 hours for the addition of each segment of the tunnel. The tunnel would be approximately 1 km in length, though only around 670m of this would be underwater. The tunnel would have been part of a light rail network connecting Fareham, Gosport and Portsmouth. The South Hampshire Rapid Transit Order 2001 provided authorisation for the project, with construction intended for 2002, but financial problems delayed this. The

Department for Transport The Department for Transport (DfT) is a department of His Majesty's Government responsible for the English transport network and a limited number of transport matters in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland that have not been devolved. The d ...

ultimately declined to fund the initiative in 2005.

References

External links

Current nautical charts of Portsmouth Harbour and approach channelLive streaming web cam overlooking Portsmouth Harbour
{{Authority control Gosport Portsmouth Transport in Portsmouth Geography of Hampshire Ramsar sites in England Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Hampshire Competent harbour authorities Tourist attractions in Portsmouth Ports and harbours of Hampshire Special Protection Areas in England