Yonder the Isle of Wight!

By Dana Huntley | British Heritage  | one comment  |  Print This Post  |  Email This Post

Just 23 miles long and 13 miles deep, the Isle of Wight has been a popular holiday destination since Victorian times.

It’s a delightful cross-section of quirky amusements, natural wonders and historic sites.

For sheer scenic wonder, travel over the sea to Skye; for Celtic mystery, cross the causeway to Lindisfarne; but for sunshine and fun, hie thee to the Isle of Wight. For generations now, people have flocked to the pretty island, drawn by its traditional seaside resort towns and their accompanying distractions, but drawn as well by the monuments of its eclectic history and the easy-going charms of its way of life. Not surprisingly, a broad array of tourist attractions has grown to entertain the visitors, and separate them from their shillings.

The Solent, a broad channel 25 miles long and up to five miles wide, separates Wight from the southern mainland coast of Hampshire. Wightlink Ferry makes the 45-minute crossing from Portsmouth to Fishbourne around the clock. Other ferries ply the Solent from Southhampton and Lymington. With up to 230 crossings a day, getting to the Isle of Wight (IOW) is never a problem. I made the easy crossing from Portsmouth, as, I learned, people have been doing for maybe 40,000 years.

At the Tourist Information Centre in Newport, a modest admission is charged to the modest Museum of Island History. It displays artifacts of nomadic hunting parties dating back perhaps 35,000-50,000 years ago. There’s accuracy for you. Earliest actual settlers on the island seem to have been Bronze Age folk some 3,500 years ago. The Romans were here, too. Their presence can be seen at award-winning Brading Roman Villa, where the colorful mosaics are reckoned equal to any in Europe.

The first real flourishing of the island, though, occurred during Elizabethan times, when preparations for the anticipated invasion of the Spanish armada were entrusted to the islanders’ royal governor, George Carey. Inhabitants attribute that early golden age to Carey’s antipathy to lawyers, who were discouraged from settling here. Perhaps there is a lesson to be learned.

For centuries, IOW was politically a chunk of Hampshire, though the island now enjoys county status of its own. Newport is the island capital and the only inland town of any size. The island itself is 23 miles long and 13 miles wide, covering 147 square miles. Like every such geographically isolated outpost, islanders have their own terminology for life. Native-born islanders are called corkheads; residents who have relocated to IOW are overners; tourists and visitors are grockles.

It was really Victorian grockles who first started coming to the island for sun and fun – inspired perhaps to follow their queen. Wight, after all, does have measurably the most sunshine in Britain. That’s reason enough in Britain for a place to draw the crowds. They have been coming to IOW ever since, and the island has grown its principal industry to house them, feed them and entertain them. White sand and shingle beaches along the eastern shore from Ryde to Ventnor have long provided a centerpiece for those famous English seaside holidays.

In fact, though, the island’s biggest single draw for visitors today is Osborne House in East Cowes, Queen Victoria’s splendid palace by the sea. This was the family home, rebuilt by her beloved Prince Albert, where she and Albert raised their large brood of children, and to which she withdrew to spend much of her time after his death in 1861. Queen Victoria herself died here in 1901.

Perhaps nowhere in Britain can ordinary folk like you and me get a more intimate view of a royal family’s domestic life and history than at Osborne House. From Swiss Cottage, the miniature chalet built as a playhouse for the royal children, to the walled fruit and flower garden and the hot houses of exotic plants, the sumptuous Royal Apartments and private family rooms, the entire regal estate is a working commemoration to the monarch who gave her name to the era of the British Empire’s greatest triumph. Osborne House is a must-see visit, at once awe-inspiring and surprisingly intimate.

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