Island History and Nature
The Isle of Wight is awash with historic Castles, manor
houses, churches and fortifications.
To many visitors, the towns and villages hold special
fascination and interest because the Islands historic
buildings have been fortunately relatively untouched by the
fashions, changes and commercial pressures of mainland
Britain.
The Island has a wealth of religious buildings dating from
Saxon times to the present day. Visit some of the village
churches to discover the fascinating heritage of a local
community whose religious and social history is preserved
within the church grounds.
Hilltop monuments such as the Yarborough Monument on
Culver Down and the monument to Tennyson on Tennyson Down
await discovery by the walker. Upon St Catherine's Down, you
will find the imposing Russian-style Hoy Monument and St
Catherines Oratory, the original 14th century lighthouse
known locally as the "Pepperpot".
The fortifications of the Island, particularly by Henry VIII
and Lord Palmerston, provides an historic insight into the
Islands strategic role. Carisbrooke Castle dates from Norman
times and brings history alive to many thousands of visitors
each year. Yarmouth Castle, the Needles Old Battery, Fort
Victoria, are of interest to the military historian, as well
as the casual visitor.
A number of manor houses with fine furniture and
beautiful artefacts are open to the public. Some manor
grounds are historic landscapes in their own right, many
containing walled gardens, fine plant collections and
buildings of local and national significance.
Queen Victoria and Prince Albert established a favourite
residence at Osborne. This Royal stamp of approval brought
many famous Victorians to visit and settle on the Island.
Alfred Lord Tennyson, who bought Farringford House, Charles
Dickens, Lewis Carroll, John Keats, Turner, Ruskin, are just
a few of the literary and artistic "greats" who were
inspired by this "enchanted isle". Walk through the older
parts of the towns to discover the historic heritage,
explore Victorian churches such as the Royal Church of St
Mildred at Whippingham and visit Osborne House, where you
can see rooms left much as they were when Queen Victoria
died there in 1901.
Isle of Wight Nature and Environment
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Coastal Wight |
Explore cliff top walks, wonderful beaches and coastal woodland.
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The wonderfully
varied and unspoilt coastline scenery is probably the Island's finest
natural asset, from the glistening chalk cliffs overlooking clear waters
to the tranquil estuaries which meander inland. |
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Whatever attracts you to the
seashore, whether it is beachcombing, bird-watching, rock pooling,
bathing or just watching the world go by, the Island's coasts will
certainly provide inspiration as well as contentment.
There are two stretches of
"Heritage Coast", covering nearly half of the Island's 60 mile (97 km)
coastline. This designation is only applied to coastlines of the highest
quality and unspoilt nature in England and Wales. |
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The Tennyson Heritage Coast
extends from St Lawrence to Totland Bay along the Island's southern
coastline. This wild open coastline of fossil-rich sediments culminates
in the towering chalk cliffs at Freshwater Bay. Beyond this are the
famous Needles rocks and the multi-coloured sandstone cliffs of Alum
Bay. This coast is very accessible with the Military Road alongside and
a clifftop footpath following its entire length. Here, in the past,
fishermen made a tough living in dangerous coastal waters where
many a ship foundered on the shallow ledges protruding from the cliffs.
Tales are still told of the lifeboatmen, mostly the same fishermen, who
braved the stormy seas in rowing boats to pluck survivors from doomed
ships. Their heroism is recorded in the nearby village churches of Brook
and Brighstone.
The Hamstead Heritage Coast on
the Solent side in contrast, comprises the wooded coastal slopes of
Bouldnor Forest, the shallow, drowned estuary of the Newtown River and
the pasture-fringed bay of Thorness.
Other coastal areas are no less
attractive with cliffs of red and gold sandstone contrasting with the
mottled clays of green and purple. Slicing through these soft cliffs
around the Island, narrow fissures called "chines" erode their way
inland. These chines were often used by smugglers hauling contraband off
the beaches.
Bembridge Harbour at the mouth of
the East Yar estuary is popular, not only with yachting people, but also
with thousands of waterfowl that frequent the old millpond at St Helens
every winter. Walking from here, round the coast towards Seaview, you
stumble upon one of the Island's least known coastal delights, Priory
Bay, which is fringed with coastal woodlands of oak and hazel and in the
secure ownership of the National Trust.
The vertical chalk cliffs at
Whitecliff Bay, south of Bembridge, provide a splendid backdrop to wide
sandy beaches stretching eastwards to the Bembridge ledges, which are of
international importance for marine life. At low tide, this extensive
area of shoreline attracts many wading birds and reveals hundreds of
rock pools teeming with crabs, sea anemones and periwinkles.
Fort Victoria Country Park, near
Yarmouth, offers an area of coastal woodland and a rocky shoreline of
extraordinary diversity for you to discover. Stunning views of Hurst
Castle across the Solent are only occasionally interrupted by the
graceful lines of the QE2 passing by. This is one of the best places to
see the Round-the-Island Yacht Race held every June.
Cowes is world famous as an
international yachting centre and the town teems with visitors during
Cowes Week, the first week in August. The seafront promenade attracts
visitors throughout the year who like to watch the constant offshore
activity. |
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In recent years,
multi-million pound coastal defence programmes have been implemented in
several areas and, in particular, from Bonchurch to St Lawrence. Fine
new sea wall promenades provide exhilarating walking and the great new
breakwaters of imported stone have, in turn, created new sandy coves. |
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| For the last 150 years, the
Island has been famous for its beaches with the Victorians popularising
the coastal waters. The wide, sandy beaches such as those found at
Compton Bay, Ryde, Sandown and Shanklin provide a safe and clean
environment in which to bathe and enjoy the traditional delights of the
sea. |
| 120 million years ago, there was
no Isle of Wight, it was landlocked, part of a large continent. In the
mud and silts of ancient marshy environments, animals and plants were
trapped and preserved as fossils. These can now be found in the cliffs
and on the beaches around the Island's coast. |
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The oldest rocks are the wealdon
clays formed when dinosaurs roamed the earth. The yellow, brown and grey
rocks exposed in the bays of Compton, Brook and Brighstone contain
fossilised trees and dinosaur bones! Giant casts of dinosaur footprints
in stone are a famous feature at Hanover Point. Dinosaur fanatics will
be fascinated by the exhibits on show at the Isle of Wight Museum of
Geology in Sandown and the Dinosaur Farm along the Military Road, where
you can watch geologists working on the Island's biggest ever dinosaur
find, a giant Sauropod! |
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Later, these ancient marshy
environments were covered by deep tropical seas. In these oceans lived
millions of minute plankton, shellfish and plants. When they died, their
shell cases fell to the seabed and built up over millions of years to
form chalk. When you walk on top of St Boniface Down (the Island's
highest point), would you believe that you were treading on the floor of
an ancient sea over 70 million years old?
All these ancient layers were
buried, compacted and then uplifted to be exposed in the rocks. The
importance of the Island's strata was recognised in Victorian days when
famous scientists, including the evolutionist, Charles Darwin, examined
the cliffs to study the fossil remains. Today, geologists continue to
examine the rocks to understand the complex processes which formed the
present Isle of Wight. To help you enjoy and interpret this scenery, the
Isle of Wight Museum of Geology leads field trips for all ages. It
provides an up to date interpretation of rocks, fossils and landscape.
Fossils found by visitors and specialist collectors can be brought to
the museum for identification. Sometimes, a "find" proves very exciting,
especially if it is unknown in the fossil record. Such fossils
contribute to our knowledge of these ancient environments.
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