Stokes Bay (grid ref.:)SZ 590 980) (50.782982, -1.163868) is an area of theSolent that lies just south ofGosport, betweenPortsmouth andLee-on-the-Solent,Hampshire. There is ashingle beach with views ofRyde andEast Cowes on theIsle of Wight to the south andFawley to the south west. The settlement ofAlverstoke is close by.
To the east of Stokes Bay isFort Gilkicker, which was built in 1871 to guard the headland and the western approaches toPortsmouth Harbour and housed 22 gun emplacements. The bay was used for experiments with submarine mines from 1879-1912. A narrow gauge railway was built from the bay toFort Blockhouse for these operations, along with a pier.
Fort Gilkicker was used in both world wars to protect Portsmouth and air attacks and fell into disrepair shortly after 1945; it is on theBuildings at Risk Register and support is being sought for its conservation and for an alternative use.[1]
There was also a pier, adjacent toGosport and Fareham Inshore Rescue Lifeboat station, from which a ferry service ran which was the quickest crossing to theIsle of Wight. The pier had arailway station, opened 6 April 1863, which had a branch line (Stokes Bay Line) from theFareham to Gosport Line. This railway stopped running services to the pier on 1 November 1915 and sold the land to theAdmiralty in 1922. The line was not as popular as the Portsmouth to Ryde crossing although the journey from London was longer than from Portsmouth. Most of the railway line is a cycle path.
The Admiralty used the pier from 1922 to transport munitions and fuel and had anarrow gauge railway line which replaced the branch line. The pier was then used as atorpedo station and fell into disrepair before being demolished in the late 1970s.
During World War IIDDValentine tanks were tested in the bay.[2] In June 1944, landing craft embarked from Stokes Bay forFrance as part ofOperation Overlord, the Allied invasion ofNormandy.
TheSolent opposite Stokes Bay is often used by extremely large warships (e.g. USsupercarriers) to anchor, asPortsmouth Harbour is not deep enough to berth them.[3]It has also been the site of many fleet reviews, the most recent being to celebrate the 200th anniversary of theBattle of Trafalgar in 2005.
To the east is the 9-holeGosport and Stokes Bay Golf Club. This area of the bay also contains a number of fresh and salt-water margin lagoons and provides a unique habitat for rare flora, including several specimens of theKermes Oak (A shrub of theQuercus family, native to theMediterranean).
50°46′43″N1°09′52″W / 50.77859°N 1.16454°W /50.77859; -1.16454