Alverstoke, a village, a parish, and a liberty in Hants. The village stands adjacent to Stoke Bay station on the L. & S.W.R., opposite Spithead, 1 3/4 mile SSW of Gosport. It is a pleasant place, with charming environs. The parish includes also the town of Gosport, the villages of Forton, Hardway, and Elson, the watering-place of Anglesey, the villas of Alverbank, the Royal Marine Barracks, the Haslar Barracks, the Royal Naval Hospital, Blockhouse Fort, and Forts Rowner, Gomer, Brockhurst, Monckton, and Grange. Acreage, 3783, of which 1223 are water and foreshore; population of the civil parish, 25,452 ; of the ecclesiastical, with Anglesey and Newtown, 10,734. It has a post, money order, and telegraph office. The manor was given by the noble Saxon lady Alwara to the church of Winchester, and it still belongs to the Bishop of Winchester as superior. Many excellent mansions, villas, and other residences, with gardens and terraces, adorn the surface and the shores, and a rich extensive prospect is enjoyed of the Solent and the Isle of Wight Stoke Bay is now a noted roadstead, where all the steam war-ships when newly fitted with their engines test their speed at the measured mile. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Winchester, and includes the curacy of Anglesey; value, £1050. Patron, the Bishop of Winchester. The vicarages of Trinity-Gosport, St Matthew-Gosport, St John-Forton, and St Thomas-Elson are separate benefices. The parochial church is Saxon, built in 1130, repeatedly restored, and now chiefly modern. Christ Church, in the Decorated English style, was opened in 1865. Dr. Wilber-force, afterwards Bishop of Oxford, was once rector here, and Dr. Trench, afterwards Archbishop of Dublin, was his curate.
