Southwick Hill Road

Street guide, Cosham

A road climbing from central Cosham up to the crest of Portsdown Hill and Fort Southwick. The lower section runs through residential streets, with interwar and postwar housing on both sides. As the road climbs, the houses become more spacious and the views open up. The upper section passes Fort Southwick, the Palmerston fort that served as the naval headquarters for D-Day planning in 1944. Southwick Hill Road provides one of the main pedestrian and vehicular routes from Cosham onto Portsdown Hill, and it is popular with walkers and runners heading for the chalk grassland and the viewpoints along the ridge. Traffic can be fast on the upper section, and there is no continuous pavement for the final stretch to the fort.