The History of Hythe
A Hyth in Old English was a hard, permanent, landing place on a river or sheltered
estuary and the position of Hythe clearly fits that description. The first
recorded use of the name dates from 1293.
The villagers of Hythe were occupied in a mixture of agriculture, fishing
and ferrying. During the Middle Ages the size of vessels visiting Southampton
increased to such an extent that they could not land their cargoes directly
onto the quays. They anchored in the river and the boatmen of Hythe acted
as lightermen, transferring the goods from ship to quay
The first mention of a regular ferry occurs when the name Hitheferye appears
on Saxton's map of Hampshire in 1575, though clearly the passage had probably
been manned since the village was founded.
By the late 1750s Hythe already had a thriving shipbuilding yard run by
George Wadmore. Positioned on the southern edge of the village in what
is now Shore Road it had good access to Southampton Water and had a dry
dock as well as several slipways. The shipyard continued in various ownership's
until it was bought in 1927 by Hubert Scott-Paine. After a major reconstruction
of the yard he founded a company for the construction of a revolutionary
design of power boats. The British Power Boat Company as it was known
built initially for the private market but the designs were soon taken
up by all three armed services. Hythe became the home of the "little
ships" of the Royal Navy, the Motor Torpedo Boats and the RAF Air/Sea
Rescue Boats of World War II. With the successful conclusion of the War
there was no need for further military vessels to be built and with no
civilian market at that time the yard was forced to close thus bringing
to an end over two hundred years of shipbuilding on the site.
St. John's Church
Until 1823 Anglican worshippers in Hythe had to travel to the mother church
of the Parish in Fawley or to the church in Dibden. In that year a small
chapel was built to serve the local congregation. Accessed from St. John's
Street, it was initially manned by a curate with Hythe not becoming a
parish in its own right until 1841. The chapel was really too small for
the whole of the new parish and at the first opportunity a new church
was built to the rear of the old chapel but now facing into New Road.
Consecrated in 1874, the church still provides an impressive backdrop
as you enter the village from the south.
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