The Village

The village was built from 1724 by John Duke of Montagu as a model town freeport where he had hoped to make his fortune in the import of sugar from the West Indies.

Woodland was cleared in Dungehill Copse and an 80-foot wide street was built down to a quay at the edge of the river. Montagu Town was to have symmetrical blocks of houses in squares as well as a chapel, inn, salt-water baths and large storehouses for imported sugar and built solidly of brick and tile. A prospectus was issued offering plots of land on a 99-year lease for 6s 8d, but although the terms were very attractive, there was little interest in the new town. By 1731 only seven houses had been built, five at the Duke’s own expense.

His plan for a sugar plantation was a disaster as when his fleet of 7 ships reached St Lucia, the French had just taken back the island and he was turned away.

Montagu Town may have failed as a sugar port, but it was soon reborn as a shipbuilding village called Buckler’s Hard, named after a Mr Buckle who had a small boatyard there.

The village inns were at the centre of life in Buckler’s Hard. They served as meeting places, offices and entertainment areas. ‘The Ship’ at no 87 was first to open in 1752. It was frequented by fishermen and used to entertain the workforce after a launch. An alternative ale house opened in 1792 at the top of East Terrace; appropriately named ‘The New Inn’, it also served as a shop. Unsubstantiated stories suggest that the inn was also a centre for smuggling under landlord Joseph Wort.

The end of shipbuilding in 1835 coincided with the beginning of a national decline in agriculture. The owner of the Beaulieu Estate, Walter Francis, 5th Duke of Buccleuch tried to help the situation in 1850 by sponsoring an emigration scheme to South Africa for tenants on his English and Scottish estates. The Beaulieu colonists sailed from Buckler’s Hard on the barge, John Samuel to meet the Lady Bruce at Portsmouth. They founded the town of Richmond, Natal, where many of their descendants live today.

As its population declined in the second half of the 19th century, the appearance of Buckler’s Hard gradually changed. During the shipbuilding years, the number of homes had risen to nearly 40, but now houses were demolished, including most of Back Street and the whole of Slab Row, so-called because the houses were built of slabs of wood from which the bark had not been removed. ‘The Ship’ and ‘New Inn’ both closed, followed by the blacksmith’s shop in 1885. The school at no 82 also closed as parents preferred the one at Beaulieu, but in 1886 a Reading Room was opened in what is now part of the Master Builder’s House Hotel, from which books could be borrowed.

Today the village is lived in by local residents, tenants of the Beaulieu Estate. The old Shipyard house is now the Master Builders House hotel, the Chapel has 8am Sunday services and the Maritime Museum is open 7 days a week all year round.

• More information can be found on bucklershard.co.uk.