Alverstoke is a small settlement contiguous with the town of Gosport, on the south coast of Hampshire. It stretches east-west from Fort Blockhouse, Haslar to Browndown Battery, and is centred 0.5 miles east of the shore of Stokes Bay and near the head of a creek which extends a mile westward from Portsmouth Harbour. The Royal Navy's Institute of Naval Medicine (INM) is located in the Haslar part of the community. Residents of Alverstoke have at times in the 20th century been called "The Alverstocracy" by some residents of Gosport, in a tongue-in-cheek fashion, due to higher house prices and a perceived higher social status of the area.