Hamble as a Fishing and Piloting Village

1600

By the seventeenth century, Hamble had settled into its role as a fishing and piloting village. The community drew its livelihood from the waters of Southampton Water and the Solent, fishing for sole, plaice, herring, and shellfish. The river provided safe moorings for the fishing boats, and the village quay was the centre of daily activity. Alongside fishing, Hamble men worked as river pilots, guiding larger vessels through the sometimes treacherous channels of Southampton Water and into the port of Southampton. The piloting trade required intimate knowledge of the tides, currents, sandbanks, and deep-water channels, and this knowledge was accumulated over generations and passed from father to son. The combination of fishing and piloting gave the village a distinctly maritime character that set it apart from the agricultural villages further inland. The houses along the waterfront reflected this, built by and for people whose lives were governed by the tides and the weather. The village was small, with perhaps a few hundred inhabitants, but its position on the river gave it an importance beyond its size. Ships passing up Southampton Water to the port would have seen the Hamble settlement on their starboard side, and many would have taken on a Hamble pilot to guide them safely to their berth.