GOSPORT  , a seaport in the

Fareham parliamentary division of Hampshire, England, facing Portsmouth across Portsmouth harbour, 81 m . S.W. from London by the London & South Western railway . Pop. of urban district of Gosport and Alverstoke (1901), 28,884 . A ferry and a floating bridge connect it with Portsmouth . It is enclosed within a double line of fortifications, consisting of the old Gosport lines, and, about 3000 yds. to the east, a series of forts connected by strong lines with occasional batteries, forming part of the defence works of Ports-mouth harbour . The principal buildings are the town hall and market hall, and the church of Holy Trinity, erected in the time of William III . To the south at Haslar there is a magnificent naval hospital, capable of containing 2000 patients, and adjoining it a gunboat slipway and large barracks . To the north is the Royal Clarence victualling yard, with brewery, cooperage, powder magazines, biscuit-making establishment, and store-houses for various kinds of provisions for the royal navy . Gosport (Goseporte, Gozeport, Gosberg, Godsport) was originally included in Alverstoke manor, held in 1o86 by the bishop and monks of Winchester under whom villeins farmed the land . In 1284 the monks agreed to give up Alverstoke with Gosport to the bishop, whose successors continued to hold them until the lands were taken over by the ecclesiastical commissioners . After the confiscation of the bishop's lands in 1641, however, the manor of Alverstoke with Gosport was granted to George Withers, but reverted to the bishop at the Restoration . In the 16th century Gosport was " a little village of fishermen." It was called a borough in 1461, when there are also traces of burgage tenure .

From 1462 one

bailiff was elected annually in the borough court, and government by a bailiff continued until 1682, when Gosport was included in Portsmouth borough under the charter of Charles II. to that town . This was annulled in 1688, since which time there is no evidence of the election of bailiffs . With this exception no charter of incorporation is known, although by the 16th century the inhabitants held common property in the shape of tolls of the ferry . The importance of Gosport increased during the 16th and 17th centuries owing to its position at the mouth of Portsmouth harbour, and its convenience as a victualling station . For this reason also the town was particularly prosperous during the American and Peninsular Wars . About 1540 fortifications were built there for the defence of the harbour, and in the 17th century it was a garrison town under a lord-lieutenant .