Where to Stay in Gosport, England

What is Gosport known for?

HMS Alliance and HMS Holland 1 stand at the Royal Navy Submarine Museum, and the Explosion Museum of Naval Firepower takes up the ordnance half of the same naval record on the Gosport side of the water. Fort Brockhurst and Little Woodham are the inland names. The bigger draw sits across the harbour at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, with HMS Victory, the Mary Rose and HMS Warrior, which is why the Gosport Ferry does as much work as any road into the town.

What are the main landmarks in Gosport?

Ships outnumber buildings. HMS Victory, HMS Warrior, HMS M33 and the Mary Rose are preserved at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, the Mary Rose Ship Hall and Museum was built around one hull alone, and HMS Excellent and the National Museum of the Royal Navy, Portsmouth hold the service's own record. St Mary's Church and the Greyhound Pub are older Gosport names.

Southsea Castle, Portsmouth Garrison church, St Agatha's, Landport, the Charles Dickens Birthplace Museum, Portsmouth Museum And Art Gallery and the Portsmouth Pyramids Centre fill out the far shore.

What is the history of Gosport?

The harbour wrote it. Gosport occupies the peninsula on the western side of Portsmouth Harbour, and almost everything the town is known for follows from that position, because a naval anchorage of that size needed magazines, forts and shore establishments as much as it needed water deep enough for ships. Fort Brockhurst carries that record on the Gosport side.

Southsea Castle and the Portsmouth Garrison church answer it from the opposite shore. Ships mark the eras. HMS Victory, the Mary Rose, HMS Warrior, HMS M33, HMS Holland 1 and HMS Alliance survive within a few miles of one another, each from a different stage of the Royal Navy, and two of them have museums built expressly to house them in the Mary Rose Ship Hall and Museum and the Royal Navy Submarine Museum.

The D-Day Story covers the invasion. HMS Excellent and the National Museum of the Royal Navy, Portsmouth hold the institutional half of the same subject, while the Explosion Museum of Naval Firepower keeps the ordnance. Civilian life left smaller marks.

St Mary's Church, the Greyhound Pub and Little Woodham stand for the part of Gosport that was never a dockyard, and across the water St Agatha's, Landport, the Charles Dickens Birthplace Museum and the Portsmouth Museum And Art Gallery do the same for the city. The ferry ties the two together.

Where is Gosport?

Water lies on three sides. Gosport takes up a peninsula on the western side of Portsmouth Harbour, directly opposite the city of Portsmouth, and the borough covers roughly 25 square kilometres of Hampshire between the harbour and the open sea. The shape governs every journey.

A crossing measured in minutes by the Gosport Ferry becomes a long drive round the head of the harbour, and that single fact does more to organise a visit than any list of sights.

What is the climate of Gosport?

The water takes the edges off. Gosport lies in the temperate band on a peninsula, so its weather arrives off Portsmouth Harbour and the sea beyond rather than over land: damp mild winters, summers that rarely turn severe, and wind coming in across open water. Rain spreads through the year.

Grey afternoons send people to the Royal Navy Submarine Museum and the Explosion Museum of Naval Firepower, neither of which cares what the sky is doing.

How do you get to Gosport?

The ferry is the front door. Gosport Ferry works the crossing to the city of Portsmouth, which places Portsmouth Historic Dockyard and Spinnaker Tower within a few minutes of the Gosport waterfront for anyone travelling without a car. By road the trip is longer.

Drivers come down the peninsula from the Hampshire side, so cars arrive from inland while foot passengers arrive off the harbour.