Hampshire County
(Historic)

Map Reference: (51.072823, -1.27658)

Hampshire is a maritime county of the south coast of England. A seaborne county and a landward county, a rural and an urban county, Hampshire looks in two directions. The mainland coast of Hampshire looks to the sea. Southampton is Britain’s greatest commercial seaport. Portsmouth is the home of the Royal Navy. From the head of Southampton Water to the edge of Sussex runs a swathe of townscape, broken only by the river estuaries, islands and creeks with which the natural coastline is ragged. Each town, though, has its characteristics and history. Across the Solent is the Isle of Wight, a self-reliant island but a part of Hampshire nevertheless. The Island is famous for its Victorian resort towns (e.g. Sandown, Ryde, Ventnor), its dramatic coastline (e.g. the Needles, Tennyson Down) and peace of its unspoiled interior. Inland Hampshire is a county of farms. The county town at its heart is Winchester, its Norman cathedral dominating the centre of the mediæval city. Beyond Winchester, Hampshire’s picture-postcard countryside rolls all around the traveller. In the south-west of the county is the New Forest, laid out as a hunting reserve by William the Conqueror, but as broad woodland and heath it is far older. The coast west of Southampton is a string of sandy resort towns, culminating in the Victorian splendour of Bournemouth.