Horsea Island
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Horsea Island was an island located in the northern end of Portsmouth Harbour. Horsea is part of the city of Portsmouth.
Originally a fairly small island, it has been artificially enlarged a number of times in its history. In more recent times the area between the island and the mainland has been used as a landfill site. This has resulted in the island becoming joined to the mainland, forming a peninsula.
The southern part of the peninsula (the original island) is home to the Defence Diving School, used by the Royal Navy and British Army to train their divers. The site was originally built to test torpedoes in World War 2, hence the length of the site. The site is based around a 1km long, 6m deep brackish estuarine lake, originally enlarged for torpedo testing. The facilities also include a 5m diving tank and decompression chambers. The waters contain many small jellyfish and a few small crabs. A 200 year old ship wreck has been placed in the central section for divers to look at.
The landfill site has now closed. The northern part has been developed as 'Port Solent', a development containing a marina, housing, retail outlets and some business units. The rest of the landfill site is being developed as a 'country' park.
