Who built the torpedo lake at Horsea Island?

Convicts built your torpedo lake from Portsdown Hill chalk. It is on Horsea Island, which is no longer quite an island, and it has had a wilder life than most.

The short answer

Wikipedia says the islands were joined in 1889 using chalk from Portsdown Hill, by convict labour. The Strong Island blog adds that the convicts used spoil from the Paulsgrove chalk pit on Portsdown Hill. The RNCDA site says the range opened in March 1889, 800 yards long, and that convicts from Kingston Prison did much of the building, living on the island for up to two and a half years.

Two springs and a sunk helicopter

The lake's level is kept up by two submerged freshwater springs. Divers train there on items placed in it, including a helicopter, vehicles and a 200-year-old shipwreck. RNCDA, Strong Island and Wikipedia all agree on that. None of them say who put the shipwreck there, so we do not either.

It is not an island any more

In the early 1970s the tidal mudflats between the island and Paulsgrove were reclaimed, joining it to the mainland. The northern part of that reclaimed land became Port Solent, built on land reclaimed east of Paulsgrove Lake.

Port Solent's first boat

Lively Lady, a 36-foot cutter, was the first boat into Port Solent. She was the boat Sir Alec Rose sailed round the world on his 1967-68 voyage, and he was knighted the day after returning to Portsmouth. Sources disagree on when the marina opened: Yachting Monthly says April 1988, Wikipedia's Port Solent page gives an opening ceremony on 29 July 1988, and Wikipedia's Lively Lady page says 1998. So we give no date.

The stadium that was never built

In 2008, Portsmouth FC and Sellar Property Group unveiled a plan for a 36,000-seat all-seater stadium on Horsea Island. It was designed by Herzog and de Meuron, the architects who also designed the Beijing National Stadium, the Bird's Nest. The cost was put at £100m, with a start planned for 2011-12, but the project was put on hold in 2009. It was never built.

What we left out

Wikipedia mentions Martin-Baker ejection-seat trials here in the 1950s, but we could not corroborate it, so it is out. RNCDA also says wireless masts here were said to be the tallest in Europe. That is a single-source claim without a usable photograph, so we have left it out too. We also found no sourced meaning for the name Horsea.

At a glance

Opened: March 1889, with a range 800 yards long.

Builders: convicts from Kingston Prison, using chalk from Portsdown Hill.

Lake level: kept by two submerged freshwater springs.

Joined to the mainland: early 1970s, by reclaimed mudflats. Strong Island says it is no longer an island, and the land now forms Port Solent and its surroundings.

Stadium plan: unveiled in 2008, put on hold in 2009.

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