Swanwick () is a village in

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Berkshire to the north, Surrey and West Sussex to the east, the Isle of Wight across the Solent to the south, ...

, England, east of the

River Hamble The River Hamble in south Hampshire, England, source (river), rises near Bishop's Waltham and flows for through Botley, Hampshire, Botley, Bursledon, and Lower Swanwick before entering Southampton Water between Hamble Common and Warsash. The ...

and north of the

M27 motorway The M27 is a motorway in Hampshire, England. It is long and runs between Cadnam and Portsmouth. It was opened in stages between 1975 and 1983, providing the largest two urban areas in Hampshire (Southampton and Portsmouth) with a direct moto ...

. The village is located within the borough of

Fareham Fareham ( ) is a market town at the north-west tip of Portsmouth Harbour, between the cities of Portsmouth and Southampton in south east Hampshire, England. It gives its name to the Borough of Fareham. It was historically an important manufac ...

and is the site of the London Area Control Centre (LACC) and the London Terminal Control Centre (LTCC), part of National Air Traffic Services

Air Traffic Control Air traffic control (ATC) is a service provided by ground-based air traffic controllers who direct aircraft on the ground and through a given section of controlled airspace, and can provide advisory services to aircraft in non-controlled air ...

Centre, and Bursledon Brickworks, the last remaining example of a Victorian steam-powered

brickworks A brickworks, also known as a brick factory, is a factory for the manufacturing of bricks, from clay or shale. Usually a brickworks is located on a clay bedrock (the most common material from which bricks are made), often with a clay pit, quar ...

. Swanwick has no real village centre and the only commercial premises of note is the Elm Tree Public House. Since the 1980s, the gradual spread of housing developments has meant that Swanwick has partly merged with the new development of Whiteley although the only direct vehicular access is via Yew Tree Drive (once a bus only route). Swanwick railway station on the West Coastway Line is approximately one mile south of the village and is nearer Park Gate than Swanwick. The village's "twin" Lower Swanwick is situated two miles west of the village on the edge of the

History

Human activity at Swanwick dates back to the

Bronze Age The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of ...

. It is understood that a ritual from the era involved the digging of shafts or wells to the underworld; one such shaft at Swanwick was found to contain 20 cylindrical loom-weights and a wooden post with organic residues believed to be the remains of flesh and blood. A refuse pit dating from Roman times has also been found at Swanwick. In the autumn of 877 AD

Alfred the Great Alfred the Great ( ; – 26 October 899) was King of the West Saxons from 871 to 886, and King of the Anglo-Saxons from 886 until his death in 899. He was the youngest son of King Æthelwulf and his first wife Osburh, who both died when Alfr ...

blockaded the city of

Exeter Exeter ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and the county town of Devon in South West England. It is situated on the River Exe, approximately northeast of Plymouth and southwest of Bristol. In Roman Britain, Exeter w ...

in order to capture the band of pagans there; some of the pagans fled by sea and were pursued by king's ships to Swanwick where the pagans' boats were sunk after a month at sea. Some historians have debated whether this was at Swanwick in Hampshire, or a coastal settlement called Sanewick in Dorset. Some accounts indicate that the pagans, who were Danish, lost some 120 vessels at Swanwick.ASC 877 - English translation a
project Gutenberg
Retrieved 2 May 2013 The Post Office Directory of 1855 listed Swanwick as a hamlet within the parish of

Titchfield Titchfield is a village and former civil parish in the Borough of Fareham, Fareham district, in southern Hampshire, England, by the River Meon. The village has a history stretching back to the 6th century. During the medieval period, the villa ...

(itself the largest parish in the county of Hampshire at the time). The hamlet had an independent chapel and four residents were listed: a

gentleman ''Gentleman'' (Old French: ''gentilz hom'', gentle + man; abbreviated ''gent.'') is a term for a chivalrous, courteous, or honorable man. Originally, ''gentleman'' was the lowest rank of the landed gentry of England, ranking below an esquire ...

by the name of William B Gates, a farmer (John Crosskey), a blacksmith (Richard Hewett) and a grocer (Thomas Privett). Around the beginning of the 20th century the area around Swanwick was noted for its

strawberry The garden strawberry (or simply strawberry; ''Fragaria × ananassa'') is a widely grown Hybrid (biology), hybrid plant cultivated worldwide for its fruit. The genus ''Fragaria'', the strawberries, is in the rose family, Rosaceae. The fruit ...

beds. Strawberry farming remained a feature of the area, and in 1961 strawberries from Swanwick were being cooled immediately after picking as an experimental way of retaining quality and freshness for longer. Swanwick's cooled strawberries were being transported to markets as far away as Leeds, Manchester and Glasgow. The air traffic area control centre at Swanwick was brought into operation in 2002. A control centre for

London City Airport London City Airport is an international airport in London, England. It is located in the Royal Docks in the London Borough of Newham, Borough of Newham, about east of the City of London and east of Canary Wharf. These are the two centres ...

, away, was added in January 2021 using a remotely operated digital system.

Landmarks

The area houses Bursledon Brickworks Museum and Swanwick Lakes Nature Reserve. The Brickworks Museum, also known as 'Bursledon Brickworks', is a volunteer-run museum; it is purportedly the UK's sole surviving Victorian steam-driven

. The nature reserve is an area of about 80 acres, that was formed from

clay pit A clay pit is a quarry or Mining, mine for the extraction of clay, which is generally used for manufacturing pottery, bricks or Portland cement. Quarries where clay is mined to make bricks are sometimes called brick pits. A brickyard or brickwor ...

excavations. Owned by NATS, the site is managed by the

Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust is a The Wildlife Trusts partnership, Wildlife Trust with 27,000 members across the counties of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, England. The trust describes itself as the leading local wildlife conserv ...

and is a

Site of Nature Conservation Interest Site of Nature Conservation Interest (SNCI), Site of Importance for Nature Conservation (SINC) and regionally important geological site (RIGS) are designations used by local authorities in the United Kingdom for sites of substantive local nature ...

. Both NATS and the Nature Reserve formed part of the original brickworks.

References

External links

Burridge and Swanwick Residents Association
serves North East part of the local community {{authority control Villages in Hampshire