Swanwick () is a village in

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

, England, east of the

River Hamble The River Hamble is located in south Hampshire, England. It rises near Bishop's Waltham and flows for through Botley, Bursledon, and Lower Swanwick before entering Southampton Water between Hamble Common and Warsash. The Hamble is tida ...

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 m ...

. 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 The London Terminal Control Centre (LTCC) was an air traffic control centre based in West Drayton, in the London Borough of Hillingdon, England, approximately north of London Heathrow Airport. Operated by National Air Traffic Services (NATS) ...

(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 airsp ...

Centre, and Bursledon Brickworks, the last remaining example of a Victorian steam-powered brickworks. 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 Whiteley is a community in the county of Hampshire, England, near Fareham. The development straddles the boundary between two council districts: the Borough of Fareham to the south and east, and the city of Winchester to the north and west. Lo ...

although the only direct vehicular access is via Yew Tree Drive (once a bus only route).

Swanwick railway station Swanwick railway station is a railway station in Fareham, Hampshire, England. Despite its name, it is actually located in Park Gate, one mile south of Swanwick. The station opened on 2 September 1889, and was specially built for the local st ...

on the West Coastway Line is approximately one mile south of the village and is nearer

Park Gate Park Gate is a locality in the Borough of Fareham in Hampshire, England. It merges into Locks Heath to the south, Segensworth to the east and Sarisbury to the west. Within the area are numerous shops, predominantly fast food outlets and estate ...

than Swanwick. The village's "twin"

Lower Swanwick Lower Swanwick is a village on the River Hamble in Hampshire, England. It is located within the borough of Fareham at the eastern end of Bursledon Bridge, which carries the A27 across the River. Location Lower Swanwick is close to the city of So ...

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 is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...

. 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 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 lett ...

times has also been found at Swanwick. In the autumn of 877 AD

Alfred the Great Alfred the Great (alt. Ælfred 848/849 – 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 bo ...

blockaded the city of

Exeter Exeter () is a city in Devon, South West England. It is situated on the River Exe, approximately northeast of Plymouth and southwest of Bristol. In Roman Britain, Exeter was established as the base of Legio II Augusta under the personal comm ...

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 Kelly's Directory (or more formally, the Kelly's, Post Office and Harrod & Co Directory) was a trade directory in England that listed all businesses and tradespeople in a particular city or town, as well as a general directory of postal addresses o ...

of 1855 listed Swanwick as a hamlet within the parish of Titchfield (itself the largest parish in the county of Hampshire at the time). The hamlet had an

independent chapel In Welsh and English church history, Independents advocated local congregational control of religious and church matters, without any wider geographical hierarchy, either ecclesiastical or political. They were particularly prominent during the W ...

and four residents were listed: a

gentleman A gentleman (Old French: ''gentilz hom'', gentle + man) is any man of good and courteous conduct. Originally, ''gentleman'' was the lowest rank of the landed gentry of England, ranking below an esquire and above a yeoman; by definition, the r ...

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 species of the genus '' Fragaria'', collectively known as the strawberries, which are cultivated worldwide for their fruit. The fruit is widely ap ...

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 a regional airport in London, England. It is located in the Royal Docks in the Borough of Newham, approximately east of the City of London and east of Canary Wharf. These are the twin centres of London's financial ...

is being added with a scheduled completion in 2018. The decision has been taken to relocate the control tower to a site away utilising three cable links providing live video will be a UK first by replacing air traffic controllers with a remotely operated digital system. It will be tested for a year before becoming operational in 2019.

Landmarks

The area houses Bursledon Brickworks and Swanwick Lakes Nature Reserve. The nature reserve is an area of about 80 acres, that was formed from

clay pit A clay pit is a quarry or 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 brickworks i ...

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 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 conservation charity in Hampshire and ...

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