A Brief History of Stokes Bay
The following is an outline of the development of Stokes Bay and the sub-menus provide far more detail.
Prior to the start of the 19thC Stokes Bay was just a wild and undeveloped area of saltmarsh frequently flooded by both sea and the River Alver which ran the entire length of the bay emptying into the sea at the south eastern corner. It was at this corner that a tower, named Haselworth Castle, was built in the mid-16th C as part of the defences of Portsmouth. By the following century, the tower was replaced by navigational aids at Gilkicker and inland in the hamlet of Alverstoke.
From the late 1820, seaside villas had begun to be erected on the outskirts of Alverstoke with the development becoming known as Angleseyville. With this growth in seaside popularity, two houses were built: Alver Bank House (now Alverbank) in 1840 followed by Ashburton House (now Bay House) two years later. With fears of a new war with France and a possible invasion, three batteries were built – two at Browndown and one at Gilkicker – and an earth rampart fronted by a concrete-lined moat extending the entire length of the bay created with the River Alver diverted into this moat. More batteries were added with No 5 built behind the lines still remaining. An auxiliary battery of Fort Monckton was built at Gilkicker Point.
At about this time the railway reached Gosport and a branch line extended to a new pier at Stokes Bay providing a link by ferry to the Isle of Wight. The Solent Forts were under construction and a yard was set up to the west of Fort Gilkicker as the land base for the materials required; the adjacent settlement for the workers became known as ‘Leather Town’. After the last of the Solent Forts was completed in 1880, the yard was acquired by the Royal Engineers for training servicemen in the use submerged explosive mines. Later, in 1908, it was used for the construction of the concrete blocks for the Spithead Breakwater to restrict the passage through the Solent of enemy ships.
A golf course was established at the east end of the Bay in 1885. The bay became very popular and in about 1923 a bathing station was built and the promenade constructed. Later a paddling pool was established on the site of the ‘Stokes Bay Morass’ that had long been a popular haunt of local children and a concrete road added to give access to the pool. North-west of the bathing station, beneath the Lines, a putting green and tennis courts were also established. In the same decade Gosport Borough Council acquired No 2 Battery 2 and the area to the north, enclosed by Battery 1, was established as the caravan park.
Then another war loomed and anti-aircraft guns installed at Gilkicker within an embanked octagonal concrete emplacement behind the beach. The sheltered shingle beach was ideally suited for the embarkation of troops and in the summer of 1942 four concrete slipways or ‘hards’ were built along the beach. The bathing station was requisitioned for the office of the Hardmaster and a command centre was added to the west end of the building, To the east of the Command Centre, construction began on Phoenix Caissons that were to form part of the Mulberry Harbours. The western end of the bay became the site of trials of amphibious (or ‘Duplex drive’) tanks.
After the war No 5 Battery was developed as a research site and experiments into diving and submarine rescue were carried out there by the Naval Physiological Laboratory. Browndown continued to function as a military rifle range. The larger part of the grounds of Bay House was made into a public park, Stanley Park, and the house became a school. In 1954 work began to remove the Lines, work that would continue until 1969, the moat being filled in with rubbish. In the centre of the bay, the bathing station returned to its original use and, behind it, the Miniature Railway had a brief existence running west around the paddling pool and back to the rear of the command building which was now occupied by Stokes Bay Sailing Club who extended their site to the north over the former station. In the early 1950s a causeway was built from the junction of Stokes Bay Road and Anglesey Road to the promenade, across the route of the recently removed miniature railway. Shelters with distinctive concrete butterfly roofs and beach huts date from the 1950s.
In 1961 the paddling pool was filled in due to concerns around the safety of the water and a new pool was built to the west of the sailing club. The bathing station, meanwhile, continued in use until 1976, when it was taken over by Gosport and Fareham Inshore Rescue but demolished soon afterwards and replaced by public toilets on its site. A new café was built to the west of the sailing club, a key part of the 1975 Stokes Bay Development Scheme. In this period, Browndown was used for the development of military and civilian hovercraft and the beach to the south of No 2 Battery hosted much hovercraft activity, including the very first revenue-earning hovercraft services, to the Isle of Wight. At the other end of the bay, Battery 5 continued to expand, with new buildings added during the 1970s and 80s, now all vacate and up for development as housing. No 2 Battery became a nuclear bunker in 1982 and has now been converted into a museum for the Historical Diving Society. Beyond, Browndown Camp was put up for sale by the Ministry of Defence in 2011, but the camping ground and ranges continue in military use.