Portsmouth, Spithead et Saint Helen’s

Portsmouth Harbour and St Helen’s and Spithead anchorages have been fundamental to Britain’s sailing navy for 2,000 years. Their topography provided optimal naval facilities, determined naval administration and actions and protected the navy above other harbours and anchorages. They thus established Portsmouth as the primary location for a British naval dockyard. Endowed with progressively more complex facilities and fortifications, by the 1840s Portsmouth Dockyard was Britain’s largest industrial site, enlarged and fortified to deter the French invasion threat.