Farlington history: 5 things you didn't know

Farlington, on the northern edge of Portsmouth, had a racecourse built in 1891 which the War Office later turned into one of the country's biggest ammunition dumps. According to Wikipedia, the "Portsmouth Park" course was taken over in the First World War and not released until 1929. That is a single-source claim, and the rest of the story is just as surprising.

The marsh that was a decoy

In the Second World War, Farlington Marshes was a Starfish decoy site, intended to mislead German bombers away from Portsea Island. Elsewhere on the Portsmouth defences, the Starfish fires were oil-fuelled and lit electrically from a control point. Control blockhouses remain, according to Wikipedia's Farlington Marshes article, and the Langstone Harbour entry says Langstone Harbour was used the same way.

A fort that is only an outline

Farlington Redoubt was part of the Palmerston ring of forts. It was demolished after the Second World War, and Wikipedia says nothing of the fort remains except the outline of the pit. Again, that is a single source. The entrance to the site is now an aggregate and recycling site, so there is nothing to see of the fort.

The man who steered Victory

Thomas Atkinson, master of HMS Victory at Trafalgar, is buried in St Andrew's churchyard in Farlington, according to Wikipedia's entry on him) and the Farlington article.

St Andrew's church

The church was first recorded in 1200. It was restored from 1872 to 1875 by George Edmund Street, whose parents married at the church in 1815. This also rests on the Farlington page, so treat it as reported. It means that the church's story includes a connection to a well-known architect through his parents' wedding there.

An Olympic champion

Jim Fox won modern pentathlon team gold at Montreal in 1976, and Wikipedia's Farlington page says he lived in Farlington when he won. His own Wikipedia page does not mention Farlington, so the local link is a single source. At those Games his team's protest exposed that Boris Onishchenko, of the Soviet Union, was using an illegally modified épée. The Soviet Union was thrown out of the event and Britain won team gold. You can read more on Boris Onishchenko's page and Jim Fox's).

A word on sourcing

Farlington is thin on dedicated history, so much of this comes from one Wikipedia page, and an independent web search found nothing to back up the racecourse story. We have flagged each single-source claim for that reason.

If you are driving past from Waterlooville towards Hayling or Portsmouth, you now know that a quiet corner of Portsmouth has a racecourse, a decoy and a gold medal in its past.

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