Alverstoke

Alverstoke is a parish in the borough of Gosport, Hampshire, England, that encompasses land stretching from Haslar to Stokes Bay. Alverstoke lies within half a mile of the shore of Stokes Bay and near the head of a creek which extends a mile westward from Portsmouth Harbour. One of Palmerston's Follies, Fort Gilkicker, a 19th century coastal battery fort, is located just to the south of Alverstoke, at the eastern end of Stokes Bay.^[1]

The name 'Alverstoke' is a most likely to be derived from a corruption of the name Alwara, a former Lady of the Manor, and Stoke, a settlement on the area of Alverstoke known as the Marsh Ground.^[2] Alverstoke is mentioned in the Domesday Book as Alwarestock.^[3]

The Institute of Naval Medicine (INM) is located here.^[4]

Residents of Alverstoke are sometimes called "The Alverstocracy" by Gosportonians in a tongue-in-cheek fashion, due to the perceived higher social status of the area.^[5]

History

Up to the early 19th Century the parish of Alverstoke was about 4.5 miles from north to south, and 2.5 miles from east to west, thus covering much of the area we know today as Gosport. The parish stretched to the east as far as Portsmouth Harbour, on the south by the Solent and on the west mainly by the parish of Rowner. On the north it adjoined Fareham and Titchfield parishes.

Large parts of the north and east of the parish were split into separate parishes between 1840 and 1913. In the late 19th century Alverstoke became completely built up and the fields separating it from Gosport disappeared. Thus the parish, which was once a large agricultural one containing the villages of Alverstoke and Gosport now comprises a smaller and mainly residential area within the Borough of Gosport.

The timeline of the transformation of the village name is:^[6]

Alwarestoch/Halwarestoke, XI to XIII century

Alvardestoke, XIV century

Aillewardstoke, XV century

Alverstoke, XVI century

Notable connections

• John Wickham Legg, physician and writer, was born here on 28 December 1843
• Samuel Wilberforce, bishop, accepted the rectory of Alverstoke in October 1840
• Infanta Maria Francisca of Portugal, estranged wife of the Carlist pretender to the Spanish throne, died in the rectory in 1834 whilst awaiting for her property in the Crescent to be completed.

References

External links

Media related to [//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Alverstoke Alverstoke] at Wikimedia Commons