The small hamlet of Eastney and surrounding farmland were developed and absorbed into Portsmouth in the period 1890–1905, with a network of streets built to house Royal Marines and their families that spread west from the barracks site.

Due to the heavy bombing suffered in The Portsmouth Blitz during the Second World War, many displaced people found refuge along the north shore of Eastney Lake, living in makeshift houseboats, converted railway carriages, and fisherman huts.

The community survived into the mid and late 1960s when the city council began to relocate families to its newly built housing estates in Leigh Park and Paulsgrove.

[citation needed] Eastney was the first venue for an underwater hockey game called Octopush, invented by Alan Blake of the newly formed Southsea Sub-Aqua Club.

A small enclosed lagoon nicknamed 'The Glory Hole' is located on the southern shore of Eastney Lake, and is refilled with Langstone Harbour's salt-water on high spring tides.