The citizens across the water in Old Portsmouth petitioned the king to remove the dangerous substance off their patch to the land opposite, owned by one Jane Priddy. Not a lot of people know that and the Hard is now stripped of its fort and its character, a shadow of its former glory.
One of the few remaining older buildings surrounding the characterless new brick development on the water is the Jolly Roger pub. It has views of barbed wire strung across a pier and a few battleship grey vessels at anchor. But don't let this put you off entering the decidedly unmodernised pub with its old oak beams, two-tier bar and 40-seat restaurant. Those in charge are keen to show you a warm Gosport reception with nary a fiery missile in sight.
Crab and lobster traps of the Romantic Period decorate the restaurant, with rope as thick as Gordon Ramsay's manly wrists hanging from the beams. Old China plates and vegetable dishes on a Welsh dresser add a cosy feel, as does the fireplace.
The extensive menu is a catch-all with offerings more akin to celebrating the 1970s style of cooking alongside more modern dishes. Melon, pineapple and grape cocktail, devilled whitebait and seafood salad vie with tapas, steaks, Cumberland sausage and mash, chilli con carne, scampi and chips and frittatas. There is a beef lasagne or pie of the day, both homemade. Fish has its own chapter with plaice Bonne Femme, sea bass with lemon and parsley butter or oven-baked red snapper stuffed with fennel, prawns and spring onions. Paninis and sandwiches are also on tap.
For children there are chicken nuggets and chips and other unwholesome dishes. Why not offer them smaller portions of the other homemade food?
My devilled whitebait (£5.95) tasted very undiabolical – a vestige of paprika or mustard, possibly, bringing these little gems to life, an undressed, chirpy salad adding a crunch. I left the sliced white bread it came with.
Ham hock with a cider apple sauce and mash with veg was my next dish. The hock, on a dinosaur-like large bone, was big enough for several brigadoons aboard a Jolly Roger. And it was fab, if unfinishable by this mere mortal. The ham itself was sensitively cooked, the sauce of the moreish kind, the rough mash even more moreish. The chef chooses his potatoes well and deals with them with panache. I left the dull carrots and over-cooked broccoli – only the cauliflower catching my fancy. A spicy shiraz helped this gargantuan meal along.
The Good Pub Guide, out recently, decried the charges in ordinary pubs. The bill here, around the £18 mark, just short of the average £20 now found in pubs in the UK according to the guide. Was it worth it? For the hock alone, yes, and for the brisk service. The Jolly Roger may not be a firecracker of a gastropub – and nor does it have such pretensions – but it offers refuge from the soulless chain pub with a mainly cooked-from-scratch meal.

The Jolly Roger, 156 Priory Road, Priddy's Hard, Gosport. (023) 9258 2584.
Open for food from midday-2.30pm Mon-Sat; midday-3pm Sun; 6pm-9pm Mon-Thu; and 6pm-9.30pm Fri-Sun.
Food: ****H
Service: ****
Atmosphere: ****H
Smoking: Outside on terrace.
Disabled access: No wheelchair access or toilets.
How to get there: Take the A32 off the M27 at Fareham, following the road to Elson Road. Turn left and left again on reaching Priory Road. The pub is on the right. Car park. Bus: 83, 86.