I visited the Isle of Wight for the first time for the day in 1977 and came back to do a National Trust Acorn Project in 1997 and then again in 2006 for a week's holiday. I returned for a 4th visit for 5 days of walking at the end of August 2013 and for a 5th visit for a week in March 2022, when the sun shone all day every day.
English Heritage manage the following sites on the Isle of Wight:
English Heritage manage the following sites on the Isle of Wight:
Appuldurcombe House
Shell of an English Baroque house in grounds landscaped by Capability Brown. The house was built by the Worsley family in 1701 but has been uninhabited since 1909.
Osborne House
Osborne House
Osborne House
Osborne House
Osborne House
Walled Garden, Osborne House
Osborne House was bought by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in 1845 and was almost completely rebuilt in an Italian style including the formal terraced gardens. The Swiss Cottage in the gardens, which was built for Victoria and Albert's many children was my favourite part of the property.
Swiss Cottage at Osborne House
Model Fort, Osborne House
Queen Victoria's Bathing Machine
Beach at Osborne House
Carisbrooke Castle
Carisbrooke Castle
Work began on the present castle around 1100 when the Isle of Wight was granted to the de Redvers family. It has been rebuilt and added to many times since then. Charles I was imprisoned here 1647-8 after his defeat in the Civil War. Donkey still operate a treadwheel to raise water 49 metres from a well.
English Heritage also looks after Yarmouth Castle (completed in 1547) and St Catherine's Oratory, which is an 11 metre tall medieval octagonal tower built by local landowner Walter de Godeton c1314 or 1328 as a penance for stealing wine from a wrecked ship. He also built an oratory or chantry next to it for a priest, who tended the light and prayed for sailors in peril. Only the foundations of the chantry have survived. St Catherine's Oratory stands high up on St Catherine's Hill between Niton and Chale and is known locally as the Pepperpot. It is apparently the only standing medieval lighthouse in England. Four buttresses were added to the lower part of the tower in the 18th century.
St Catherine's Oratory
The National Trust own a lot of land on the island. Their properties open to the public are Mottistone Manor Gardens, Bembridge Windmill, Needles Batteries, Brighstone Museum and Shop and Newton Old Town Hall.
Needles Battery
The Needles
Chalk cliffs from the Needles Battery
Needles at Sunset
Needles Old and New Batteries - a Victorian coastal defence and secret record testing site above the Needles Rocks.
Mottistone Manor
The house isn't open to the public but the garden is.
The Shack at Mottistone Manor
This building was designed by architects John Seely (later 2nd Lord Mottistone) and Paul Paget as their country office in the 1930s. As well as an office it has bunk beds, a cooker, fridge, sink, wardrobes, a toilet and a shower.
Inside The Shack at Mottistone Manor
Mottistone Gardens
Newtown Old Town Hall
- a 17th Century town hall with no town!
Newtown Old Town Hall
Bembridge Windmill was built c1700. It last operated in 1913 and was given to the National Trust in 1961. It is open to the public in the summer but you can view the outside of it at any time of year from the public footpaths that run by it.
Bembridge Windmill
Bembridge Windmill
The National Trust also owns St Helens Duver, an extensive area of sand and shingle in the east of the island. I spent a few days here working as a National Trust Volunteer. At the beginning of the week we were told we were going to be building a cedar fence. However we spent a few days constructing a sea wall to prevent erosion. At the end of the week it dawned on us that what we had built was a sea defence, not a cedar fence!
Other highlights of our holiday were:
Model Village, Godshill - an excellent example of its kind. There aren't many model villages in England - I can think of Babbacombe, Bourton-on-the-Water and Bekonscott. Likers of models might also like the Model Railway at Fort Victoria Country Park.
Newtown Estuary
- a tranquil place in the north west of the island and well worth the walk to get there. The area is a National Nature Reserve and is comprised of mudflats, salt marsh, woodlands and meadows.
Ventnor Botanic Garden
The botanic garden was founded by Sir Harold Hillier and his wife Mona in 1970 on the site of the Royal National Hospital for Diseases of the Chest (1869-1964, demolished in 1969). It opened to the public in 1972The garden contains temperate and subtropical trees and shrubs from around the world. They are able to grow outdoors here as the site, which is south facing and part of the Undercliff landslip, has its own mild microclimate.
Ventnor Botanic Garden
Cactus at Ventnor Botanic Garden
Ventnor Botanic Garden
The Isle of Wight Steam Railway was also a must see for us. It runs for 5.5 miles from Smallbrook Junction where it meets the ordinary railway through Haven Street to Wootton Bridge. http://www.iwsteamrailway.co.uk/
Even the ordinary railway, which runs for 8.5 miles from Ryde to Shanklin via Sandown isn't ordinary. The carriages are former London underground trains.
Donkey lovers can visit the Donkey Sanctuary at Wroxall.
One of my favourite places on the island is Bonchurch Landslip. I don't suppose many visitors go there but it is worth the climb down and up again, as it is like a secret world. It was there that we saw the only red squirrel of our holiday. Later in the week we went to Parkhurst Forest where they have a special red squirrel hide but we didn't see any there.
This church was built in the 11th century by monks from the Abbey of Lyra in Normandy. It is probably built on the site of an earlier Saxon church. It ceased to be the parish church in 1848 when a new church was built at The Shute in Bonchurch.
St Catherine's Lighthouse on the most southerly tip of the island has a Visitor Centre. However I was disappointed to find it wasn't open when we visited. There has been a light at this point to warn shipping since 1323.
St Catherine's Lighthouse
Compton Chine
The Isle of Wight has a big problem with coastal erosion but this does keep the chalk cliffs looking very white!
Alum Bay - famous for its different coloured sands
There are several Isle of Wight companies that make their own ice cream and yes, I did have to try them all! One of them is Minghella's - the film director Anthony Minghella was the son of the original owners.
Tennyson Monument on Tennyson Down
The poet Alfred Lord Tennyson lived at Farringford House in Freshwater Bay from 1853 (he bought it in 1856). He didn't live there all the time but visited regularly until his death in 1892. Tennyson Down is named after him.
Tennyson Monument
Tennyson Down
Freshwater Bay looking east
Ventnor Beach on a sunny August Bank Holiday
Monument to the Earl of Yarborough on Culver Down
Brighstone Church
There are many lovely villages on the Isle of Wight but Brighstone is one of the loveliest.
Brighstone
This is now the world's only commercial passenger hovercraft service in the world. It runs between Southsea and Ryde. The journey takes 10 minutes.
The Catholic Benedictine Abbey of Our Lady of Quarr was built by a group of monks and their abbot Dom Paul Delatte, who came from Solesmes in France. They had left France in 1901 to escape unjust religious laws there. They initially lived at Appuldurcombe House but in 1907 they bought Quarr Abbey House near the site of the ruins of the medieval Quarr Abbey. The monastery and church were designed by Dom Paul Bellot, who had been an architect. The abbey was built 1911-12. It is built entirely of brick - you will either love it or hate it. Most of the monks returned to France in 1922 but 25 of them remained behind at Quarr.
Quarr Abbey welcomes visitors: you can visit the abbey, gardens, pigs, visitors' centre and the monks' graveyard. There is also a tea shop, farm shop and monastery shop.
Quarr Abbey
Statue of the Virgin Mary at Quarr Abbey
Monks' graveyard at Quarr Abbey
No comments:
Post a Comment