Havant

Havant, a market-town in the Fareham parliamentary division of Hampshire, England, 67 m. S.W. from London by the London & South Western and the London, Brighton & South Coast railways. Pop. of urban district (1901), 3837. The urban district of Warblington, 1 m. S.E. (pop. 3639), has a fine church, Norman and later, with traces of pre-Norman work, and some remains of a Tudor castle. Havant lies in a flat coastal district, near the head of Langstone Harbour, a wide shallow inlet of the English Channel. The church of St Faith was largely rebuilt in 1875, but retains some good Early English work. There are breweries and tanneries, and the manufacture of parchment is carried on. Off the mainland near Havant lies Hayling, a flat island of irregular form lying between the harbours of Langstone and Chichester. It measures 4 m. in length from N. to S., and is nearly the same in breadth at the south, but the breadth generally is about 1½ m. It is well wooded and fertile. A railway serves the village of South Hayling, which is in some favour as a seaside resort, having a wide sandy beach and good golf links. The island was in the possession of successive religious bodies from the Conquest (when it was given to the Benedictines of Jumièges, near Rouen), until the Dissolution. The church of South Hayling is a fine Early English building.

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