Horsea Island

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Coordinates: 50.837166° N 1.097946° W

A map of Horsea Island in 1945
A map of Horsea Island in 1945

Horsea Island was an island located at the northern end of Portsmouth Harbour. Horsea falls within the city of Portsmouth, but is wholly owned by the Ministry of Defence and comprises part of the HMS Excellent shore establishment, which maintains its headquarters on Whale Island.

Contents

[edit] History

Originally two islands, Great and Little Horsea, they were joined to form a torpedo testing lake in 1889, using chalk excavated from Portsdown Hill, 1 km to the north, by convict labour. A narrow-gauge railway was constructed on the site by the army to distribute the chalk. Although the lake length was extended from 800 yards to over 1,000 yards in 1905, it was effectively obsolete by WW1 following major advances in torpedo design and range. In 1909, the island became the site of one of the Navy's three high-power shore wireless stations, which saw it populated with dozens of tall masts. After closure of the telegraphy station, the northern part of the island became home to HMS Phoenix, the naval school of firefighting and damage control, comprising several steel buildings that were regularly doused in kerosene and ignited [1]. However, as this practice caused significant water and air pollution, the school removed to a modern gas-fired facility on Whale Island in 1994. Today, the island is occupied solely by the Defence Diving School, used by the Royal Navy and British Army.

[edit] Reclamation

In the early 1970s, the tidal mudflats between the island and mainland at Paulsgrove to the north were reclaimed, much of the area destined to become a landfill site, the remainder to form the Port Solent leisure complex. The landfill site closed in 2006, and waste is now incinerated at a plant Portsmouth. The northern part of the reclamation has been developed as 'Port Solent', a complex comprising a marina, multiplex cinema, housing, retail outlets, and some business units known collectively as the 'North Harbour Business Park'. The rest of the landfill site is being developed as a recreational park featuring woodlands and meadows.

[edit] Horsea Lake

The lake includes a 5 m diving tank and decompression chambers. The waters, which contain a wealth of marine life, were used in the 1950s to test ejector seats for the Royal Air Force. A 200 year old ship wreck has been placed in the central section for divers to investigate. The level of the lake is maintained naturally by two submerged freshwater springs.

[edit] Conservation

The area to the south of the lake forms one of the few terrestrial parts of the Portsmouth Harbour Site of Special Scientific Interest or SSSI on account of the rare flora and fauna [2] that have flourished on the imported chalk, notably the Small Heath butterfly Coenonympha pamphilus (a UK BAP Priority species now extinct on Ports Down) and over 150 species of moth. The eastern extremity of the former island, beyond the SSSI, is used as an elm trials site for the evaluation of new disease-resistant cultivars. The site's old English Elms Ulmus procera, were home to a colony of rare White-letter Hairstreak Satyrium w-album butterflies until 2001, when a resurgence of Dutch elm disease killed the remaining semi-mature trees. Horsea is also the only known habitat of the moth Eulamprotes immaculatella in Hampshire.

[edit] Portsmouth Football Club

In October 2007, Portsmouth F.C. announced plans to build a 36,000 seat football stadium on the south-east corner of Horsea Island, near to the M275 motorway. The proposed new stadium at Horsea Island is planned for completion in 2011[3]. However, the plan is beset with serious logistical problems, notably the paucity of access by road and rail. Moreover the site is less than 1 m above sea level, and sea levels are predicted by some to rise by up to 6 metres by 2100 [4] [1]. Lastly, much of the proposed housing development, necessary to help fund the stadium, falls within the SSSI, and as such is most unlikely to be approved. A formal planning application has yet (May, 2008) to be submitted.

[edit] References

  1. ^ The Portsmouth Papers, No. 36: Horsea Island and The Royal Navy. Portsmouth Museums, Portsmouth.
  2. ^ Hooper, S., Smith, D. & Tomlinson, N. (1991). The COPSE* Report (*City Of Portsmouth Survey of the Environment). Portsmouth Urban Wildlife Group, Portsmouth. (Private publication)
  3. ^ "Pompey switch site of new stadium", BBC Sport, 2007-10-26. Retrieved on 2007-10-27. 
  4. ^ Overpeck, J. T., Otto-Bliesner, B. L.,Miller, G. H., Muhs, D. R., Alley, R. B. & Kiehl, J. T. (2006). Paleoclimatic Evidence for Future Ice-Sheet Instability and Rapid Sea-Level Rise. Science, 24 March 2006, Vol 311, no. 5768, pp 1744-1750