[2] The port is located between the confluence of the rivers Test and Itchen at the head of the mile-wide drowned valley known as Southampton Water.

The mouth of the inlet is protected from the effects of foul weather by the mass of the Isle of Wight, which gives the port a sheltered location.

The average tidal range is approximately 4 metres (13 feet), with 17 hours per day of rising water thanks to the port's "double tides".

From 1881 the cruise industry grew slowly until the 1970s, when major shipping operators were badly affected by the rise in popularity of long-haul jet air travel.

Faced with falling demand for their mail and passenger services, they turned their business to holiday cruises: voyages that usually end where they begin, providing short leisure visits to other ports on the way.

The largest vessel using the Port of Southampton is P&O Cruises Arvia, with a length of 345 m (1,132 ft), a gross tonnage of 184,700 and a passenger capacity of 5,200.

Its mile-long marine terminal handles 2000 ship movements and 22 million tons (tonnes) of crude oil annually, making it the largest independently owned docks facility in Europe.

A direct pipeline, completed in 1972, connects the refinery with the West London Terminal in Hounslow, supplying aviation fuel for Heathrow Airport.

John H Whitaker operates a small fleet of tankers offering bunkering and other services to the cruise ships visiting the port.

The Eastern Docks is home to a variety of transport companies and marine service providers, including Williams Shipping who occupy 21 Berth.

[28] PS Waverley, the last seagoing paddle-steamer in the world, runs a small number of slightly longer day cruises from Southampton each year.

As a "Clyde sludge boat", she spent her working life dumping treated sewage, first from Glasgow, later from Southampton.

Royal Victoria Country Park on the shore is centred on a chapel which is all that survives of what, when completed in 1836, was the longest building in the world.

Today it is known to yachtsmen as "the heart of British yachting"; the village is set in a river estuary noted for its wildlife.

Its famous model ships, used for practising operation of large marine vessels picture were moved in May 2011 from their old base at Marchwood to a new one near Timsbury.

[34] The seven ton (tonne) models are powered, and have control systems which simulate the realistic handling of real ships.

The new facility for them at Timsbury Lake near Romsey features models of berths, ship canal locks, narrow channels etc.

The Department of Transport has responsibility for the safety of navigation within the Western Solent beyond this limit, as it lies outside the jurisdiction of any of the harbour authorities.

The hangars along the spit for them now accommodate a large activities centre, with climbing walls, velodrome and dry ski slope.

Saxon landings in 495, Lawrence of Arabia, the Schneider Trophy and the world's first port radio and radar station[16] all also feature in the history of this tiny village.

Between this marina and the Marchwood Military Port, 800 acres (324 ha) of land extending from the shore to a line roughly 900 yards (1 km) inland, is owned by ABP.

[16] It adjoins part of the eastern boundary of the New Forest National Park, and port development proposals are always highly emotive and contentious locally.

These handle low-value, non-perishable and non-urgent bulk goods, including timber, scrap, metals, cement, sand and other quarry products.

More houseboats are berthed to the north of it on the Western side, otherwise the riversides are occupied by parkland and the Portswood Sewage Treatment Works for much of the next stretch, as far as Woodmill Bridge.

Car storage compounds within the docks now extend close to the bridges carrying the main Southampton – Bournemouth railway line and the busy A35 dual carriageway.

The tidal section of the river, and the area of the navigation authority of The Port of Southampton, end in Redbridge, at a point close to these transport structures.

The village of Eling, with its sailing club and moorings for small boats, faces the container terminal to the south-west.

It features a Norman parish church, one of the two working tide mills left in Britain, and a mediæval toll bridge that still charges users.

Two miles (3.2 km) of undeveloped foreshore, mainly reeds, shingle and mud lie downstream from Eling, opposite the container port; then comes industrialised Marchwood, facing the western docks.

This area was home to Husband's Shipyard, famed for wooden military craft including minesweepers, and also yachts and fishing boats.