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Hamble Common | Stage 9
Hamble Common
At this point you can choose to extend your walk and explore more of the coastline by taking the path back down towards the shore, turning left and walking to Hamble Common, passing the oil pipeline. | | It'll take you about 45 minutes to walk to Hamble Common along the beach or the path. There is also parking at Hamble Common and at Hamble Point.
When you're walking along the beach look out for the mudflats and saltmarsh. You can also see the small exposed gravel cliffs, these are composed of flint, eroded from the chalk and you may be lucky enough to find a fossil.
Bell heather and purple moor-grass cover much of the common, with occasional patches of gorse providing nest sites for birds like stonechats and linnets. This type of coastal heathland is now very rare in Hampshire.
On the pond, the tall reeds provide cover for nesting moorhens and mallard ducks. At low tide you may see wading birds such as ringed plovers, oystercatchers, turnstones and feeding on shellfish and worms from the mud. Brent geese spend the winter here before returning to the Arctic to breed.
The Common is the site of some of the earliest evidence of settlement in Hampshire. The ditch and bank running right across the site probably protected an Iron Age settlement, from around 500BC.
Walk back towards Netley either along the beach or small path on the shore.
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