Saltern's Park

Did you know the park was reclaimed? Before the 1950s the park was an intertidal foreshore and saltmarsh until its enclosure by onshore migration of a gravel barrier that now forms the beach. Previously, the coast comprised eroding cliffs. The steep vegetated slopes bordering Salterns Lane were the former cliff line. 

Hill Head Harbour

The former estuary of the Meon River was drained and reclaimed in the 17th century, but the lower valley has been managed in recent decades as a nature reserve with regulation of water levels providing lagoon and reed bed habitats.

Titchfield Haven

The lagoon and freshwater marsh of Titchfield Haven occupies the reclaimed lower estuary of the Meon that was formerly tidal inland to the village of Titchfield.

Eastward deflection by drift of the outfall of the River Meon is apparent transporting sand and gravel from eroding cliff sources to beaches at Hill Head and Lee-on-the-Solent.

A series of unusual gravel bars are apparent on the intertidal lower foreshore and either move onshore themselves, or feed gravel onshore.

A possible explanation is that they could represent residual onshore feed from an abandoned ebb tidal delta on the foreshore that would have been active at a time when Titchfield Haven was a tidal estuary.