Web Page  No 2190

1^st September 2015

Top Picture: The torpedo lake

Second Picture: The aerial accident

Third Picture: 1920’s picture showing original radio towers

HORSEA ISLAND

As a teenager who had friends with dinghy’s there were very few places we did not get to in both Langston and Portsmouth Harbours, even Whale Island was a possible landing place, if you stayed out of sight on the west side of the island. But there was always one no go area and that was Horsea Island. Whenever we approached it there was always some form of guard around, there was high fencing and the whole island really bristled with radio masts and antennae. Many of the Royal Naval establishments around the harbour were familiar to all of us, including much of the mothball fleet which was moored off of Gosport Hardway but Horsea Island was always a bit of a mystery.

Horsea Island was, until 1885, two islands, Great Horsea and Little Horsea and both are known to have been places of agriculture, since Roman times. At low tides the two islands were of 166 and 56 acres in size, the larger being part of Wymering and the lesser part of Porchester. They had originally been connected to the mainland by three 'wade ways', one to Tipner Point, another to Hilsea and one to Stamshaw but the first fell out of use as Tipner developed as a Naval Magazine, the second was lost to major episodes of flooding whilst the Stamshaw route remained until the 1970's but was eventually lost when the motorway was built.

 In December 1884 the Admiralty asked the then owner, Mr. Bovill-Smith, if they could purchase both islands so they could develop new forms of warfare, in this instance, the torpedo. It was plain from the outset that the Fleet Torpedo Department would need a substantial stretch of water in which it could carry out experiments. Trials were carried out at Stokes Bay, off Whale Island and in Portchester Lake but none of them were suitable. So it was proposed that the two Horsea Islands be joined to form an area in which a suitable range could be constructed. To achieve this thousands of tons of filling was needed to bridge the space between the islands. It was decided that the chalk under Portsdown Hill would be used and a railway track was constructed between the hill and the foreshore at Paulsgrove where the chalk was loaded onto barges then pulled across to the islands by a steam engine brought across the Hilsea wadeway for the purpose. Much of the building work itself was carried out by convicts from Kingston Prison who lived on the island for up to two and half years, the time it took to complete the project.

Horsea Torpedo Range was officially opened in March 1889. The range was 800yds long, 20yds wide at the firing end and 80yds at the other with a depth varying from 20 to 30 feet. The base was manned by 9 seaman and one Petty Officer but within a year this had been increased to 6 Petty Officers, 14 Seamen and 5 stokers, the whole coming under a Commissioned Gunner who reported to the Captain of HMS Vernon and travelled to the island daily. By 1898 a permanent residence for the officer-in-charge had been built on the island. 

Torpedo technology developed rapidly and by the late 1890s the range was too short but it took until 1905 before work to extend it to 1,115yds was complete.

In 1899 the Navy adopted the Marconi system of Wireless Telegraphy and set up a school to develop its use at HMS Vernon. The early systems were low powered. In 1902 the station was upgraded to medium power enabling clear signals to be transmitted up to 300 miles at sea. This was extended to 1000 miles by 1906 now high powered transmitters were available and the Navy set up three new stations at Gibraltar, Cleethorpes and Horsea Island. 

The new station at Horsea consisted of 4 wooden 150 ft. aerial masts with 8 'spreader' masts of 60 feet surrounding them. Power was delivered via an underwater cable from the dockyard. For the first time security at Horsea became a serious issue and fences were erected around the masts and an extended guardroom manned 24 hours a day. Developments were being made with such speed that this first station was out of date within 6 years and plans were made for an array of 4 masts of an overall height of 446 feet, which when erected were the tallest in Europe. The first went up in 1913 to be followed by two more in 1914, the last finally being erected until 1921.

The masts dominated the skyline and were constructed as a triangular wooden lattice 7 feet each side. They had no taper and were supported by galvanised steel cables attached to anchor sheaves. The first three had hardly begun their work before one of them was involved in an accident when Flight Commander E.A. de L. Ville flew his seaplane into a mist over Portsmouth and struck one of the masts at a height of 360 feet. Hearing the crash three sailors began climbing up the outside of the mast until they reached the plane where the found the pilot hanging over the front of a wing, unconscious. They managed to get him into a bosun's chair and lower him to the ground where he made a full recovery. The three men who climbed the mast were awarded medals for bravery; the mast, despite repair retained a permanent kink at it's highest level for the rest of its life.

By the end of the Great War torpedo technology had almost rendered the Horsea range redundant it's 1,100 yds was no longer sufficient. This work was largely transferred to the Stokes Bay Torpedo Experimental Station but Horsea was not neglected, instead it received a full modernisation of its equipment so that it could play a major role in the development of motor torpedo boats and submarines. The wireless station also received an upgrade which enabled it to take part in various experimental technologies.

By 1933 wireless technology no longer depended on the wooden masts and they were replaced by steel towers of 180 and 100 feet in height. The steel towers themselves became redundant after the second world war though the wireless station remained operational until about 1960. Horsea's role in later years became diversified, from providing facilities for swimming lessons, the training of divers and fire fighters and amphibious tank trials.

In the early 1970s Horsea’s status as an island disappeared when much of the adjacent harbour was reclaimed to form Port Solent along with a mountainous land-fill site. The original range can now be accessed by road though it remains a serving Naval base attached to HMS Excellent. 

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Peter

DUSTYKEAT@aol.com

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