 that have been named Adventure. For one night, the Airbnb accommodation became home for my wife and I, as well as our daughters Isabelle, ten, and Amelie, eight, and our dog. Its features wouldn't look out of place in a high-end apartment, with two bathrooms decorated in trendy green gloss tiles, a kitchen with its own Aga and a wood burner in the lounge overlooking the water. There is no wi-fi or television, just board games and blue skies, making it a great place for a digital detox. Our daughters got over this technological challenge as soon as they were collecting shells on the nearby private pebble beach. Later, they found a pair of binoculars. This meant they could spend the afternoon spotting warships across the bay){kind=link}
FIGHTING a gust of wind, I push open the heavy patio doors to reveal water from Portsmouth Harbour crashing against the dock below.
More than 200 years ago, a shifting house sat on the spot I’m standing on, where munitions workers would change to prepare for their busy day of helping to ready British warships.
Royal Navy recruits would then navigate these waters in Priddy’s Hard, Gosport, loaded with gunpowder to arm the naval fleet before it went out to sea.
Today, the sailors and seamen have been replaced by sightseers, with the Portsmouth Naval Base Property Trust restoring the 23-acre site.
Having started life as a fort in the 1750s, it was eventually decommissioned as a military weapons storage centre in the 1970s.