FORTON is a hamlet and ecclesiastical district, formed in 1841 from the civil parish of Alverstoke, in the Southern division of the county, liberty and incorporation of Alverstoke, Portsmouth county court district, Fareham petty sessional division, diocese and archdeaconry of Winchester, and deanery of Droxford south-westem division, on the old road to Southampton, from which place it is 16 miles, one mile from Gosport, and 90 miles from London. 

St. John the Evangelist church was erected about the year 1830; it is of brick, in the Pointed style, having two square towers and clock. In 1871 the interior of the church was greatly improved by removing the side galleries, re-seating the whole with open benches, and removing the screen, so as to open out the east end, which was also raised: a new organ was also erected at the same time, and a new font was placed near the west end. 

The register dates from the year 1834. The living is a vicarage, yearly value £290, in the gift of the rector of Alverstoke, and held by the Rev. Charles Pierrepont Hutchinson, M.A., of Trinity College, Cambridge. Here are some barracks, which have been considerably enlarged, and are now occupied by the Royal Marines; also a large military prison, containing 150 cells. Contiguous to Brockhurst is an iron church for the use of the troops. 

There are new National schools for boys and girls, which, together with the old National school, now an Infant school, will accommodate nearly 500 children. Large Sunday schools are held in the same buildings. There is a handsome chapel for Baptists; also a small Primitive Methodist chapel and a Baptist chapel at Brockhurst, and a Baptist meeting room at Camden Town. Thorngate's almshouses, 54 of which are situated at Camden Town, Forton, and 10 at Brockhurst, are of recent erection, some of which are exclusively devoted to single women and widows, and the others for married couples not under 50 years of age. The population in 1871 was 6,022.

BROCKHURST is a hamlet, midway between Forton and Elson, and partly in each district, having a station on the London and South Western railway.

THE VILLAGE OF FORTON
 Dating back to Saxon times, the village of Forton comes from the original For-tun which meant village by the ford.

It stands between Gosport and Fareham and was built along the side of Forton Lake, which was a tidal creek that ran inland to Ann's Hill where there was a small pier which allowed grain which had been milled in the windmill there to be loaded on to sailing barges and taken along the creek to Portsmouth Harbour.

The Fountain Inn was on the right hand side of the road coming from the west in the 1860s and this had some lovely views across Forton Lake and would have been a favourite place for the people of the walled in garrison town of Gosport to enjoy. At the back of the Inn were Fountain Row and Fountain Place. Like Gosport the village was overshadowed by the military buildings and by the Forton Military Prison which held prisoners from the American War of Independence and then incarcerated soldiers who had broken the  laws of the military, It was a grim place with an extremely harsh regime and a lot of the prisoners did not reach the end of their sentences,

Forton Barrracks was another martial establishment where the soldiers of the Royal Marine Light Infantry were quartered and married  quarters were constructed around the barracks. One of these areas was Mill Lane which ran down to the ford across the lake and which could be crossed at low tides
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