A wealth of information about human development and changing landscapes can be found where the land meets the sheltered waterway of the Solent. You’ll find a wide range of environments including open water, extensive mudflat and saltmarsh, offshore sandbanks and tidal estuaries. All of these have been influenced and shaped by the people travelling through and living in the area, their settlements and industries, resulting in a diverse coastal heritage.

A number of prominent coastal trades and activities have developed along the New Forest coast, including saltworking, shipbuilding, smuggling, iron working, fishing, maritime trade and national defence.

The New Forest is the most densely populated national park, and this has inevitably left various marks on the coast. The coast is not a barrier or boundary to human endeavour, rather an extension of the terrestrial resource: a richly varied area that has been managed and exploited over time.

Known discoveries of human activity dating from prehistoric periods 125,000 years ago, to the Cold War are just a taster of the yet-to-be recorded evidence that will be uncovered and publicised by the New Forest Coastal Heritage Project