Hurst Castle
Local highlightA squat Tudor gun fort at the end of a long shingle spit, set to guard the narrow western mouth of the Solent
Open to visitorsan English Heritage site — check opening times and admission before you go
Substantial ruinsruined, but plenty survives above ground
Hurst sits at the very end of a mile-and-a-half shingle spit that reaches out from the mainland towards the Isle of Wight, closing the western entrance to the Solent to a narrow channel. Henry VIII had it built in the early 1540s as one of a chain of low, squat gun forts — device forts, so called after the royal “device”, or plan, that ordered them — meant to keep enemy ships out of England’s harbours. Its most famous guest was Charles I, held here as a prisoner over the winter of 1648 in the weeks before he was taken to London for trial and execution. The stubby Tudor centre was later swallowed by two long Victorian armoured wings, added when invasion from France was feared again in the 1860s, so the fort you walk round is really two forts in one, with a lighthouse alongside. English Heritage runs it. You reach Hurst either on foot along the shingle from Milford on Sea, heavy going underfoot and part of the Solent Way, or by the small ferry from Keyhaven when it is running, out past the birdlife of Keyhaven and Pennington Marshes.
More at the National Heritage List entry
