Sowley
| Site of Special Scientific Interest | |
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 Location within Hampshire
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| Area of Search | Hampshire |
|---|---|
| Grid reference | SZ374967 |
| Coordinates | 50°46′07″N 1°28′13″W / 50.76854°N 1.47014°WCoordinates: 50°46′07″N 1°28′13″W / 50.76854°N 1.47014°W |
| Interest | Biological |
| Area | 47.97 hectares |
| Notification | 1971 |
Sowley Pond (grid reference SZ374967) is a 47.97 hectare biological Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), in southwest Hampshire, notified in 1971. It is an important refuge for both surface feeding and diving ducks and functions as an integral part of the marshland system of the west Solent.
Sowley Pond is situated on the southern edge of the New Forest, approximately 1 km from the Solent and is midway between Lymington and Bucklers Hard. The road crossing the dam that was constructed to form the pond is part of the Solent Way long-distance footpath.
Sowley Pond was formed in the fourteenth century by monks from nearby Beaulieu Abbey who dammed the Crockford stream, which rises on Beaulieu Heath, to form a fishery.
During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the pond was used to supply water for an ironworks situated on the opposite side of the road on what is now Sandpit Lane.
The Sowley ironworks were completed in the 1590s by the Earl of Southampton. It had a tenuous existence during the 17th century, but with the rapid expansion of Portsmouth dockyard the works were taken over by Henry Corbett, a specialist blacksmith from London, who set up a forge at Beaulieu in conjunction with Sowley. He was financed by Edmund Dummer, a former surveyor of the Navy, and naval contracts for wrought iron followed. Corbett died in 1708 and Dummer continued the business until 1712 when he went bankrupt and his brother Thomas (an ex-navy purser) continued to supply the navy until 1716. By the 1790s, the ironworks were leased by Charles Pocock who lived at the adjacent Sowley House but the ironworks became uneconomic and ceased operating after the Napoleonic Wars. The forge continued to operate until about 1822.
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