After Fawley, the walk becomes more beautiful. We pass deep lanes and scattered cottages set in their trim gardens, when suddenly on the shore rises the round gray castle of Calshot, standing at the very end of a bar of sand, separating the Southampton water from the Solent. Though much repaired, it stands not much altered from Henry VIII.’s original blockhouse. Once of great importance, its garrison now consists of only the coastguard and a master-gunner. Its walls are still strong, measuring in the lower embrasures sixteen feet through, but the upper storeys are much slighter. On the west side is cut the date 1513, whilst some stone cannon balls of the Commonwealth period show the importance Cromwell attached to the place. But the stronger fortifications of Hurst, and the new batteries in the Isle of Wight, have done away with its necessity, and it stands now only as a monument of Tudor patriotism and of Cromwell’s care.[65] But the place has older associations than these. In _The Chronicle_ and _Florence of Worcester_ we read[66] that, in 495, Cerdic and his son Cynric arrived with five ships, and landed at Cerdices-ora, and on the same day defeated the natives. No site has given rise to so much discussion as this Cerdices-ora. Mr. Thorpe in one place says it is not known, whilst in another, by an evident oversight, he fixes upon Charford.[67] Dr. Guest places it at the mouth of the river Itchen,[68] whilst Mr. Pearson and others have identified it with Yarmouth.[69] Now, I think there can be little doubt, looking both at the etymology of the name and the situation, that Calshot is the true place. The land here runs out into the sea with no less than ten fathoms of water close to it, so that large vessels can to this day lie alongside the Castle. It is the first part, too, of the mainland which can be reached, and on its north side offers a safe anchorage. Besides, about four miles off stand some barrows, which, though we may not be able to identify them as covering those slain in the first battle which the West-Saxons fought, offer some presumption in favour of that theory. In the very word Calshot, and its intermediate forms of Caushot, Caldshore, and Cauldshore,[70] we may, without difficulty, recognize a corruption of the original Cerdices-ora of the _Chronicle_ and _Florence_. The word is formed like the names of various places close by, such as Needsore (the under-shore) and Stansore Point.[71] But going farther back, we come much nearer to its original form in the old Forest perambulation made in the eighth year of Edward I., where it is spelt Kalkesore.[72] As then, Charford, on the north-east borders of the New Forest, is the representative of Cerdices-ford, where Cerdic’s last victory was gained over Ambrosius; so here, I think, at the south-west, near Kalkesore, now Calshot, was his first achieved.