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City in Hampshire, England

Portsmouth

Britain's only island city is packed onto a single island, has had a naval dockyard since 1495, and gave the world both Dickens and Brunel.

Portsmouth
Photo: Mike Faherty , CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Key information

County
Hampshire
Nation
England
Population
about 208,000 (2021 Census)
Known for
Royal Navy base, HMS Victory, Spinnaker Tower, Charles Dickens's birthplace
What locals are called
Pompeyites (and 'Pompey' for the city itself)
Famous people
Charles Dickens, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Peter Sellers
Football clubs
Portsmouth FC, nicknamed Pompey

About Portsmouth

Britain's only island city

Portsmouth sits mostly on Portsea Island, a flat, crowded lump of land separated from the mainland by a narrow creek and linked by bridges and the M275. That makes it the only island city in the United Kingdom, and one of the most densely packed places in the country outside London. The island position shaped everything. A huge natural harbour, sheltered by the Isle of Wight and the Solent, made it an ideal place to station ships. Locals still talk about going 'over the bridge' when they head to the mainland. The seafront runs from Old Portsmouth round to Southsea, where shingle beaches, a castle built by Henry VIII and a pier give the place a very different feel from the dockyard.

Where the Navy keeps its oldest tricks

Portsmouth has been a naval base for more than 500 years. Henry VII is credited with building the first dry dock here in 1495, which makes the Historic Dockyard one of the oldest naval dockyards in the country. The star attraction is HMS Victory, Nelson's flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, which remains a commissioned warship and is the world's oldest naval vessel still in commission. Close by lies the Mary Rose, Henry VIII's flagship, which sank in the Solent in 1545 within sight of the king. She was raised in 1982 in front of a vast television audience, and is now displayed in a museum. The dockyard also holds HMS Warrior, launched in 1860 as Britain's first iron-hulled armoured warship. Three eras of naval power, all within a short walk of each other.

Why a football club is called Pompey

Nobody agrees where 'Pompey' comes from, and Portsmouth has happily kept the argument going for generations. Theories include a sailor's corruption of Portsmouth Point, a reference to Pompey the Great, and even a long-ago shipwreck. What is certain is that the name now belongs to the city, its football club and its fans. Portsmouth FC were founded in 1898 and play at Fratton Park, a ground tucked among terraced streets. The club won the league championship in 1949 and 1950, and the FA Cup in 1939 and again in 2008. After the 1939 win, the war meant the club held the trophy for seven years, until 1946. Fans are known for the 'Pompey Chimes', a bell-like chant of 'Play up Pompey, Pompey play up', which echoes around Fratton Park.

Dickens, Brunel and the Goon

Charles Dickens was born in Landport, Portsmouth, in 1812. The little terraced house where he was born is now a museum, and furniture there includes the couch on which he died, at his home in Kent in 1870. Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the engineer behind the Great Western Railway and the SS Great Britain, was born in Portsea in 1806. His father, Marc Brunel, was working on pulley-block machinery at the dockyard, a pioneering example of mass production. Peter Sellers, the comic genius behind Inspector Clouseau, was born in Southsea in 1925. Arthur Conan Doyle later practised as a doctor in Southsea in the 1880s and wrote his first Sherlock Holmes story, A Study in Scarlet, while living there.

Towers, forts and a chimney full of views

The Spinnaker Tower, which opened in 2005 at Gunwharf Quays, rises about 170 metres above the harbour and is shaped like a sail. On a clear day its viewing decks give you the Solent, the Isle of Wight and the South Downs. Old Portsmouth has a cobbled, salty feel, with the Round Tower and Square Tower guarding the harbour mouth. Offshore in the Solent stand the Victorian sea forts, including Spitbank and No Man's Land, begun in the 1860s against a French invasion that never came. Spitbank was completed in 1878 and No Man's Land in 1880. Southsea Castle, Southsea Common and the D-Day Story museum add more. Portsmouth was a key embarkation point for the 1944 Normandy landings, and Eisenhower and other commanders planned the invasion nearby at Southwick House. The Isle of Wight ferries and the Gosport ferry keep the harbour busy, and the city remains home to a large part of the Royal Navy's surface fleet, including the aircraft carriers HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales.

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