Hampshire Basin, where Britain has onshore and offshore oil; Danebury, 2,500-year-old Celtic hillfort; Beaulieu (including National Motor Museum); Broadlands (home of Lord Mountbatten); Highclere castle (home of the Earl of Carnarvon, with gardens by Capability Brown); Hambledon, where the first cricket club was founded in 1750; site of the Roman town of Silchester; Jane Austen's cottage at Chawton (1809-17), now a museum; Twyford Down section of the M3 motorway was completed in 1994 despite protests. In addition to Danebury, there are early fortified hilltop refuges at Old Winchester Hill; St Catherine's Hill, Winchester; Ladle Hill, Sydmonton; Beacon Hill, Burghclere; and Quarley Hill. There are convent ruins at Netley, Beaulieu, and Titchfield; notable monastic churches still in use are Winchester Cathedral and Romsey Abbey. The Royal Navy has an establishment at Gosport, and the army has important military depots and training areas at Aldershot and Bordon in the Northeast, and at Tidworth in the Northwest. At Hamble there is aircraft construction.

Portsmouth
Naval port, and unitary authority in southern England, 73 miles southwest of London, on the peninsula of Portsea Island, opposite the Isle of Wight. 12th-century cathedral; 

Tudor warship Mary Rose and Admiral Horatio Nelson's flagship HMS Victory are exhibited 

HMS Victory, launched in 1765 took 27 miles of rigging and 850 men to control at sea, and she remains the world's oldest commissioned battleship. 

The Naval dockyard was closed in 1981, although some naval facilities remain; it is a continental ferry port. The harbour has a narrow entrance, but expands into a basin 4 miles by 2 miles. On the opposite side of the harbour is Gosport. 
Portsmouth has ferry links with the Isle of Wight, France, and the Channel Islands. 

The Historic Ships complex includes the HMS Warrior (1860), Britain's first armoured battleship, and the Royal Naval Museum, which illustrates naval history from the 16th century. Near the museum is Double Ropehouse, which was the longest building in the world when it was completed in 1776. The building where Charles Dickens was born now houses a museum. Porchester Castle nearby is the site of a Roman fort founded in the 3rd century. The Australian Settlers Memorial is a chain-link sculpture commemorating the departure of the first convict ships to Australia in 1787. Millennium Project Work began in the late 1990s on an £86 million project to develop the harbour and create an extensive maritime leisure complex; the development work will continue well into the next century. The renaissance of the harbour was chosen by the Millennium Commission as one of 12 Landmark Projects. Among the features will be 6 km/4 mi of new public promenades on both sides of the harbour; Gunwharf Quay, a former Ministry of Defence training establishment, which will be transformed into a festival waterfront area with cafés, bars, restaurants, hotels, and houses; and the Millennium Tower (approximately 165 m/541 ft high), which will be located at Gunwharf Quay, close to the harbour entrance, and will have an observation gallery. History Portsmouth was already a port in the days of King Alfred, but in 1194 Richard I recognized its strategic importance and created a settlement on Portsea Island. By the beginning of the 13th century Portsmouth had become an important naval station, the docks enclosed by a strong wall, accommodating the royal galleys. In 1545 the English fleet assembled at Portsmouth prior to the naval engagement with the French off Spithead. In 1662 the marriage of Charles II with Catherine of Braganza took place here. George Villiers, the 1st Duke of Buckingham, was assassinated in Portsmouth in 1628, and Admiral John Byng was executed here in 1757. In September 1805 Admiral Horatio Nelson and his fleet departed from Portsmouth for Trafalgar. During World War II Portsmouth was a principal embarkation point in the D-day operation. It was an important military target, and, of 70,000 buildings, 65,000 suffered some damage in air raids. 6,650 were totally destroyed.

Buckler's Hard is a picturesque 18th century village on the banks of the Beaulieu River in the heart of the New Forest. It was created in the early 18th century by the 2nd Duke of Montagu, who planned to build a free port, Montagu Town, on the banks of the Beaulieu River for the import and export of sugar from the West Indies. The idea failed to get off the ground when the French captured the islands, but from the 1740's the site was used for the building of over 50 wooden ships for the Royal Navy.

Historically, it is famed as the place where some of the ships of Nelson's fleet were built. The Master Shipbuilder, Henry Adams, and his sons built many ships, including Agamemnon, Euryalus and Swiftsure, all of which fought at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. Agamemnon was said to be Nelson's favourite ship. The dispatch conveying news of Nelson's death at Trafalgar was written on Euryalus.

Buckler's Hard is a little over two miles from its sister attraction of Beaulieu, where visitors can tour the National Motor Museum as well as Palace House and Beaulieu Abbey.

The Spinnaker Tower is a striking new seamark, soaring 170 metres above Portsmouth Harbour, offering visitors spectacular views from a great height. It is tall, elegant and sculptural in design with two large white sweeping arcs that give the tower its distinctive spinnaker sail design.
The tower is the centrepiece of the ‘Renaissance of Portsmouth Harbour’ redevelopment project. Spinnaker Tower is a concrete, steel and composite structure that rises 170m from the sea adjacent to Gunwharf Quays. It has three tourist viewing platforms at heights of 100, 105 and 110m that offer extensive views over Portsmouth harbour and beyond.
It is constructed upon a 3m thick pile cap and founded on 84 piles, and comprises two inclined slip-formed hexagonal concrete shafts, of 6m across, which merge into a single shaft at 70m. One shaft contains an internal express lift and the other shaft carries a panoramic external lift up the seaward face. It is the tallest public viewing tower in the UK.