Spithead

'' by Turner, 1807. It receives its name from the Spit, a sandspit that stretches south from the Hampshire shore for . Spithead is long by about in average breadth. Horse and Dean Sand lie to the NE side and Ryde Sand and No Man's Land to the South side. As of 2004, the main channel was reported as being maintained at a dredged depth of 9.5m. ==History==

There are evidence of submerged prehistoric landscapes at Spithead. On 19 July 1545, Mary Rose sank off Spithead. Spithead was the location where sank in 1782 with the loss of more than 800 lives. In 1836, the artist Clarkson Frederick Stanfield described Spithead as "marked out by buoys at regular intervals, and is often the spot chosen for the assembling of the English fleet. The port is the general rendezvous where all ships homeward or outward bound take convoy, and frequently seven hundred merchantmen have sailed at one time from Spithead." The Fleet Review is a British tradition that usually takes place at Spithead, where the monarch reviews the massed Royal Navy. In July 2007, Admiral Alan West, a former First Sea Lord, took the name Spithead when he was appointed to the House of Lords, taking the title Baron West of Spithead. ==Infrastructure==

Spithead has been strongly defended by four Solent Forts, which complement the Fortifications of Portsmouth. The forts were begun in 1865 under Lord Palmerston and completed by 1880. In 2016, several new navigational lights on posts were installed by pile foundation into the seabed at Spithead to be used by the s. ==References==