Hamble-le-Rice

Although previously known as "Hamble", "Hamelea", "Hammel", and "Ham-en-le-Rice", the village's official name is now Hamble-le-Rice. The name "Hamble" is still in common usage. On 27 April 1992, the civil parish was renamed from "Hamble" to "Hamble-le-Rice". To the south of the village, lies the site of an Iron Age promontory hillfort, Hamble Common Camp. The place-name 'Hamble-le-Rice' is first attested in a French document of 1147, where it appears as Amle. It appears as Hamele in 1270, and as hamele in the Rys in 1404. The village takes its name from the River Hamble; the Rice is the Old English hrīs meaning 'brushwood' or perhaps by extension 'scrubland', and of which the modern form is…

Hamble-le-Rice is a boating mecca: the nearby River Hamble is often packed with marine traffic and, during the summer, the whole village is crowded with people out enjoying the water, local restaurants and many pubs. The village and its river is one of the many locations that made up the fictional village of Tarrant, in the BBC television series Howards' Way, shown weekly on BBC One in the late 1980s. Hamble-le-Rice is home to Hamble Common, a variety of estuary wildlife, and other scenic walks.