//
Photo: Ian Stannard from Southsea, England, CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Hurst Castle is an artillery fort established by Henry VIII on the Hurst Spit in Hampshire, England, between 1541 and 1544. It formed part of the king's Device Forts coastal protection programme against invasion from France and the Holy Roman Empire, and defended the western entrance to the Solent waterway. The early castle had a central keep and three bastions, and in 1547 was equipped with 26 guns. It was expensive to operate due to its size, but it formed one of the most powerful forts along the coast. During the English Civil War of the 1640s, Hurst was held by Parliament and was used briefly to detain King Charles I before his execution in 1649. It continued in use during the 18th century but fell into disrepair, the spit being frequented by smugglers.
© OpenStreetMap contributors
The New Forest is a beautiful place to do a variety of outdoor activities. There are numerous off-road cycle paths scattered around the forest, interspersed between and even larger quantity of walking and hiking paths. With wild horses and donkeys year round, and cows in the summer, exploring the heathland of the New Forest seems to take you back to what the UK must have been like centuries past.
An artillery fort, built by Henry VIII.