HAMPSHIRE

2 miles south-east of Beaulieu

Many of the mighty men-of-war used by N in the Napoleonic Wars were built at Buck! Hard in the 18th and early part of the I centuries, when it was the home of one of country’s busiest shipyards. A double row brick cottages, once the homes of shipwrig stand on either side of a broad roadway leadi down to the quay on the Beaulieu River

The great days of Bucklers Hard are recalled its maritime museum, part of which was a inn. John, Duke of Montagu, who owned ilea lieu Manor, planned to import sugar from West Indies, and created the shipbuilding i~ try to construct the vessels he needed for venture. Oak from the New Forest was plentiful and there was an ironworks at nearby Sow, Pond, where a powerful forge-hammer was ated by a water-wheel. The river anchorage a hard bottom, an advantage that was inco, ated in the name of the flourishing shipyard Montagu’s venture failed when the French co ised the islands, and the shipyard lay idle until the 1740s, when warships were needed for war with France.

Fifty-six ships for the Royal Navy were there between 1745 and 1818, including the gun Agamemnon and two other vessels in Nelson victorious fleet at Trafalgar in 1805 - the ba that ended with the admiral’s death ~ records describe how as many as 4,000:

would assemble on launching days, when ev vehicle and saddle horse within miles was motion’. Stacks of oak timbers, piled for

ing in and around the town, were higher than the rooftops.

Decline set in with the end of the Napoleonic Wars. The shipyards closed and vacant houses crumbled into ruin. Still standing there is a fine old brick mansion which was the home of Henry Adams, the master builder of Bucklers Hard. The house is now the Master Builder’s House Hotel. Next door to the hotel is an unusual chapel; it is a consecrated room in a cottage, and can hold no more than about 30 people.

Yachtsmen now moor on the river and pleasure boats ply from the quay.

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