Hurst Spit is a one-mile-long (1.6 km) shingle bank near the village of Keyhaven, at the western end of the Solent, on the south coast of England.

At the end of the spit is Hurst Castle, an artillery fortress originally built on the orders of King Henry VIII, and much enlarged in the 19th century.

[1] The spit forms a barrier which shelters a Site of Special Scientific Interest known as Hurst Castle And Lymington River Estuary.

[1] In addition a sand bar, known as The Trap, sticks out 60 m (200 ft) into the Solent just east of the round tower of Hurst Castle.

[5] Hurst Spit supports an important community of saltmarsh plants especially sea purslane (Halimione portulacoides); glasswort (Salicornia species); annual seablite (Suaeda maritima); and golden samphire (Inula crithmoides).

[9] Hurst Castle was built between 1541 and 1544 by Henry VIII as part of his network of coastal defences to protect England against French and Spanish invasion.

[13] The inn was called The Shipwright's Arms, and in 1808 it was said that "in the summer season, much company is attracted there, being on the beach of an open pure sea".

[16] There was also a coastguard station "near the castle" in 1878 "with four men and a chief boatman", and there was a depot for "smacks employed in collecting from the adjacent coasts the septaria nodules, used in the manufacture of Roman cement.

[17] In the 1880s a military narrow gauge railway, part of the track of which survives, was built to shift stores and ammunition from the dock to the castle.