Almost hidden from the sight and knowledge of man are the picturesque, though melancholy, remains of the little village which a century ago was a busy hive of industry and a veritable cradle of the British Navy of Nelson’s time; but in the single street of red-bricked dwellings, once more numerous, now weathered by the sun and wind of the passing years, is a memorial, melancholy but romantic, of the days of “the wooden walls of old England,” when the great shadow of Napoleon dominated Europe. Here nowadays, so far off the beaten track, lie fragments of the great shipbuilding yard which once flourished on the banks of Beaulieu River, and its story is worth the telling. In the middle of the eighteenth century John, Duke of Montagu, who, in addition to his lands in this retired corner of Hampshire, owned the vast and prosperous Sugar Island of St Vincent, and inherited the rights of the ancient abbots of Beaulieu to a free harbour upon the river, conceived the idea of making a seaport upon its banks at Buckler’s Hard. His methods were characterized by great perspicacity, and soon the grants of land which he was prepared to make at a merely nominal rent, and free delivery of timber, proved the means of starting what afterwards became not only a prosperous, but also a famous, community. The name, Buckler’s Hard or Quay, was derived from a local family called Buckler, who, however, were not destined to become connected with the shipbuilding industry. Favoured by the fact that the spot was close to an immense store of magnificent timber, then, as now, growing in the New Forest, and to the famous Iron Works of Sowley, it was scarcely surprising that the duke’s scheme ultimately turned out quite as satisfactorily as he had expected. The noble owner of the river advertised widely the fact that ships could leave it in any wind, thus demonstrating the advantages that it had over other places such as Bristol on the Severn, and some of the ports of the Thames. This and other claims which he made had the effect of attracting to the place a firm called Wyatt and Co. In September, 1743, the _Surprise_, of twenty-four guns, the first battleship built upon the river, was launched. At this time the little village, which sprang up to meet the needs of the shipbuilding industry thus started, was, apparently out of compliment to its founder, known as Montagu Town; but every important reference to the place in historical records and other works is by its first name, Buckler’s Hard, and the other name must have speedily fallen into disuse.