A short history of the Solent
The information presented on the following pages was extracted from The Ecology, Conservation and History of the Solent by Colin Tubbs, published by Packard Publishing Ltd, Chichester. First published 1999. Copies are still available.
Introduction
The Solent is the drowned valley of a river which once flowed east between what are now the Isle of Wight and the mainland of Hampshire and West…
Formation of the Solent
Across the estuary and harbour mouths, shingle spits have been formed by the dominantly eastward littoral drift and there is a discontinuous beac…
The Solent's natural wealth
Probably the natural wealth of the Solent was harvested by man from the earliest times, but any evidence there might have been for this before ab…
The impact of population growth
Today, as we move into the twenty-first century Portsmouth and Southampton are the focal points of a city region which looks only partly to the s…
Evolution of the Solent
Ever since the mid-nineteenth century, significant ecological and geomorphological changes have taken place in the Solent. In the early nineteent…