Bouldnor is a hamlet near Yarmouth on the west coast 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 Is ...

in southern

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

. It is the location of

Bouldnor Battery Bouldnor Battery is a military battery located in Bouldnor on the Isle of Wight. It saw active service in World War II and was fully decommissioned in 1956. Today, it is a Scheduled Ancient Monument In the United Kingdom, a scheduled monument ...

, a gun battery emplacement. Bouldnor is located on the

A3054 road The A3054 is an A-Class Road on the Isle of Wight in Southern England. It forms the Northern half of the ''circular'' around-the-Island A-class loop, the southern half being the A3055. It connects Newport and Ryde Ryde is an English ...

, and public transport is provided by buses on Southern Vectis route 7. A soapbox derby was held in Bouldnor in 2005. It was a big success, so the event was repeated in 2006, though moved to Newport and renamed the Isle of Wight Soapbox Derby Challenge."May Date for Island's Soapbox Derby"
, Isle of Wight County Press, Tuesday, April 18, 2006

The Bouldnor Cliff Mesolithic Village seaport

The Bouldnor Cliff Mesolithic Village is an internationally important archaeological site underwater off the coast of the Bouldnor Cliffs. Mesolithic flints and other items have been found. This material dates from 8000 years ago. During the

Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several pa ...

, this was a seaport that supported trade with the Middle East (as wheat was present here 8,000 years ago, hundreds of years before wheat was grown anywhere in Europe).

Bronze Age Britain Bronze Age Britain is an era of British history that spanned from until . Lasting for approximately 1,700 years, it was preceded by the era of Neolithic Britain and was in turn followed by the period of Iron Age Britain. Being categorised as ...

had large reserves of tin in the areas of

Cornwall Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a Historic counties of England, historic county and Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people ...

and

Devon Devon ( , historically known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South West England. The most populous settlement in Devon is the city of Plymouth, followed by Devon's county town, the city of Exeter. Devo ...

Mining in Cornwall and Devon Mining in Cornwall and Devon, in the southwest of England, began in the early Bronze Age, around 2150 BC. Tin, and later copper, were the most commonly extracted metals. Some tin mining continued long after the mining of other metals had be ...

was then of global importance. Tin is necessary to

smelt Smelt may refer to: * Smelting, chemical process * The common name of various fish: ** Smelt (fish), a family of small fish, Osmeridae ** Australian smelt in the family Retropinnidae and species ''Retropinna semoni'' ** Big-scale sand smelt ''A ...

bronze Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals, such as phosphorus, or metalloids suc ...

. At that time the sea level was much lower and carts of tin were brought across 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 low tide for export from Bouldnor, possibly on the

Ferriby Boats The Ferriby Boats are three Bronze-Age British sewn plank-built boats, parts of which were discovered at North Ferriby in the East Riding of the English county of Yorkshire. Only a small number of boats of a similar period have been found ...

and later on the

Blackfriars Ships The Blackfriars shipwrecks were a series of wrecks discovered by archaeologist Peter Marsden in the Blackfriars area of the banks of the River Thames in London, England. The wrecks were discovered while building a riverside embankment wall alon ...

References

Hamlets on the Isle of Wight {{IsleofWight-geo-stub