Image by Gerald Davison via FlickrHurst Castle stands at the end of a 1.5mile shingle spit and has been defending the Solent for centuries. The shingle split was eroding so it has been reinforced with thousands of enormous stones brought all the way from Norway. It is a long walk and I struggled to keep up with an old man who turned out to be 88 years old and was revisiting the place he and his wife used to bring “the children” in the sixties.
You can walk back from the castle but I opted for the little boats that take you to the car park from which you can return to the Norwegian stones. I let a dysfunctional family who were shouting at each other take the first boat and I sat at the front of the next one. As always I was searching for a business story and started talking to Jason, the skipper. Jason said that his family had been associated with Hurst Castle for many years and now they had the contract with English Heritage to run the castle. So it is a family controlled, Passive Equity Company, which is building up the number of visitors to the castle. When the queues get too long, they switch from to the ninety seater boat which keeps everyone happy.
There are two lovely houses built for the lighthouse keepers but sadly they are not available for rent as the sewage systems run directly into the Solent. Good enough for the hundreds of years but not for us! Hurst Castle is available for parties.
