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Every day hundreds of motorists drive along Clayhall Road near Stokes Bay, Gosport, and pass over the
site of one of Alverstoke's most famous landmarks without being aware of its one-time existence. Nor do they ponder the part it has played in saving so many sailing ships from foundering on the treacherous banks and
bars of the Solent.
Solentside Gilkicker Point takes its name from a pair of distinctive stone and brick-built towers, called
Gilkicker and Kickergill, erected as navigation aids to guide sailing ships through the deep water channels of Spithead as they headed into and out of Portsmouth Harbour. The seaward Gilkicker stood, not on the site
of the now derelict Fort Gilkicker, but nearby where the building of Fort Monckton in 1779 caused its demolition. A smaller feature constructed on the newly built Fort Monckton replaced the felled Gilkicker tower,
so allowing the navigation facility used by ships' commanders and pilots to continue.
Kickergill the landward seamark, continued to stand on the edge of a field near Alverstoke
Creek until 1965. It was in that year Gosport Borough Council sent workmen to knock it down "to make way for road widening,” It was not scheduled as an ancient monument, it was not even listed as being of
historical or architectural interest. So down it came.
Mrs, Jean Hill, an Alverstoke resident, was eyewitness to the destruction of the Kickergill tower in 1965.
She has written that:
'Work began on Monday, June 21, 1965. We were told the estimated time needed to do the job was - ONE
DAY! The drills started up and worked relentlessly, the sound intruding into everyday activities. Each succeeding day we walked by to observe progress. By Friday midday there was a gaping hole at the base,
clearly this faithful friend could not last much longer.
On Saturday, surely, its hours were numbered. Lunch at home was served in relays with one of us appointed
runner for up to the minute reports. Half way through lunch my six-year-old son. dashed in and frantically panted "its going any minute they've almost cut through." We rushed to our favourite landmark to
find it still standing. But, after a wait of 20 minutes it fell — so gracefully. The mysterious Kickergill shattered on the ground amid a cloud of dust. We had lost a friend. But why? I asked myself. Surely not
because it was considered unsafe!’
Most adults were flabbergasted to see the demolition taking place. But the children were quite excited by it
all. Suddenly, where an old familiar landmark used to catch everyone's eye, there was an empty space, a nothingness.
Twenty of the Council's pneumatic drill bits were blunted as workers had attacked the tower's masonry.
When the dust cleared stone was sold off to anyone asking for it. It is certain that fragments of Kickergill are, even now, incorporated in garden walls and fire surrounds in the Alverstoke area.
Mrs. Joan Russell, a local historian, offered a prize in 1987 to anyone who could throw light on the
derivation of the names 'Gilkicker' and 'Kickergill’. She had long wondered if they were personal names or even naval slang. No one came forward to claim that prize. It was this by-gone challenge that whetted the
authors’ curiosity, but it was soon found a 'name source' was not the only unanswered question related to the seamarks. It was evident, after browsing through a number of history books, a vagueness existed as to
when the towers were built and precisely how they were used by ship's commanders and pilots.
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Well I'm Blowed, would you believe it! - a dictionary of Sayings from Pompey and Turktown
