X-Nico

56 unusual facts about Isle of Wight


A3055 road

The section from Brook to Freshwater Bay is a clearway, so stopping on this section is only permitted at the five car parking areas, of which one is free, and the rest are operated with a charge to those who are not members of the National Trust.

The Military Road is the section of the A3055 regional coast road on the Isle of Wight which starts at Chale in the East and ends at Freshwater Bay in the West.

The road from Chale to Niton was built as a diversionary inland route following the collapse of the previous coastal road between Niton and Blackgang in 1928.

Admiralty M-N Scheme

The Number One tower was soon found an alternative use as a replacement for the Nab Rock lightship, 40 miles away off Bembridge in the Isle of Wight.

Baron Mottistone

He notably served Lord Lieutenant of the Isle of Wight from 1986 to 1995 and as the last Governor of the Isle of Wight between 1992 to 1995 and was succeeded by his son as the fifth Baron, in 2011.

Basketball at the 2011 Island Games – Men's tournament

The men's tournament was held from 26 June–1 July 2011 at the Medina Leisure Centre, Newport and Cowes High School, Cowes.

Basketball at the 2011 Island Games – Women's tournament

The women's tournament was held from 26 June–1 July 2011 at the Medina Leisure Centre, Newport and Cowes High School, Cowes.

Battle of Bonchurch

The plan for the advance of the French soldiers at Bonchurch may have been to burn Wroxall and Appuldurcombe, capture and consolidate a position on the heights of St. Boniface Down, and then move towards Sandown to link up with a French landing there.

Battle of the Raz de Sein

On 12 April 1798 the British blockade fleet under the command of Admiral Lord Bridport sailed from its winter anchorage at St Helens on the Isle of Wight for the Breton coast.

The British blockade fleet under Admiral Lord Bridport had sailed from St Helens on 12 April and on the morning of 21 April was crossing the Iroise Passage when sails were spotted to the east.

Bembridge Beds

The Bembridge Beds are strata forming part of the fluvio-marine series of deposits of Oligocene age, in the Isle of Wight and Hampshire, England.

Billie Love

In 1989 she moved to the Isle of Wight and began the third part of a career as a collector of rare photographs specialising in late Victorian and Edwardian life, and with her partner Anna Shepherd she created the Billie Love Historical Collection and published several books including How to Become A Child, published by The Billie Love Historical Collection (1996; ISBN 0951841017).

British Rail Class 483

They were extensively refurbished between 1989 and 1992 by Eastleigh Works, for use on services on the Isle of Wight's Island Line.

Charles Pritchard

He then retired to Freshwater, in the Isle of Wight, and took an active interest in the affairs of the Royal Astronomical Society, of which he became honorary secretary in 1862 and president in 1866.

Christ the King College

This article is about Christ the King College in Sierra Leone, for the Christ the King College on the Isle Of Wight see Christ the King College, Isle of Wight

Daphne Pearson

When her father was appointed as vicar of a parish in St Helens, Isle of Wight, her family moved there, to a house facing France across the English Channel; she later said that was the first time in her life she considered joining the Navy.

Der schwarze Husar

While the Duke has taken a passage to the Isle of Wight, his cavalry officer (Rittmeister) Hansgeorg von Hochberg and his friend Lieutenant Aribert von Blome hide away in an inn with two young women.

Dorothy Shakespear

Her mother Olivia Shakespear, born on the Isle of Wight, lived her early years in Sussex and later in London where she, with her sister Florence, was raised to live a life of leisure.

Édouard Corbière

He launched a regatta in 1851, then unsuccessfully proposed starting a national subscription for France to send a yacht to the regatta around the Isle of Wight at which, on 22 August 1851, the schooner America won the trophy later renamed the America Cup.

Frank Norman

After the homes came a succession of petty crimes for which he was imprisoned, finally leading to a three year stretch at Camp Hill Prison on the Isle of Wight.

Fred Barnard

Frederick was married to Alice Faraday (1847–1952) on the Isle of Wight on 11 August 1870.

Freshwater Bay

Freshwater, Isle of Wight, cove on the south coast of the Isle of Wight, England

Freshwater, Yarmouth and Newport Railway

A level crossing at Freshwater Causeway(operated by a residential crossing keeper)

Gilbert Sheldon

During this period he became with Henry Hammond one of the churchmen closest to the king, and attended him in Oxford, later in Newmarket, Suffolk and finally in the Isle of Wight.

God's Providence House, Newport

God's Providence House, Newport, is located in St Thomas' Square, Newport, Isle of Wight, England.

HM Prison Parkhurst

HMP Isle of Wight – Parkhurst Barracks is a prison situated in Parkhurst on the Isle of Wight, operated by Her Majesty's Prison Service.

Jackson Analogue

After receiving plays on BBC Radio 1, BBC Radio 2, XFM and many specialist shows the record labels come knocking and after their first sell out gig at Ryde Castle on the Isle of Wight, and after much bidding the band sign with Island Records.

John Coleridge, 1st Baron Coleridge

Lord Coleridge married Jane Fortescue Seymour, daughter of the Reverend George Seymour of Freshwater, Isle of Wight, herself an accomplished artist who notably painted John Henry Newman.

Louis Henri, Prince of Condé

While in exile in 1811, the duc de Bourbon had made the acquaintance at a bordello in Piccadilly of one Sophia Dawes or Daw, a maid in a brothel from the Isle of Wight.

Louis IV, Grand Duke of Hesse

On 1 July 1862, Louis married Princess Alice, the third child of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight.

Macrodontopteryx

An Early Oligocene (Stampian, MP21-23, about 32 Ma) distal radius from Hamstead, Isle of Wight (England) was also assigned to Macrodontopteryx.

Mark Woodnutt

Harold Frederick Martin Woodnutt (23 November 1918 – 6 November 1974), known as Mark Woodnutt, was a British Conservative Party politician, chartered secretary and company director of Woodnutts - a boat-building firm at Bembridge on the Isle of Wight.

Moss Motor Tours

was a bus and coach company that operated on the Isle of Wight between 1921 and 1994.

MV Cuthred

With a gross tonnage of 750, she was the largest Isle of Wight Ferry of the time, capable of carrying 48 cars and 400 passengers.

National Cycle Route 23

The route initially follows the River Medina, now a small stream, across the main road at Blackwater.

The route then follows the old railway line across the Yar's floodplain until Langbridge, at the edge of Newchurch, where a slight deviation to the north is required, again due to development on the old route.

No. 253 Squadron RAF

253 Squadron was formed at Bembridge, on the Isle of Wight, on 7 June 1918, remaining there until disbanded on the 31 May 1919.

Osborne Stable Block

In 1859 Osborne Stable Block was built on the old cricket ground in the grounds of Osborne House on the Isle of Wight.

Parliamentary representation from Isle of Wight

The Isle of Wight, an island off the south coast of England, was part of the historic county of Hampshire (originally Southamptonshire), and was linked with it for parliamentary purposes until 1832, when it became a county constituency in its own right as it had also been during the Protectorate (1654–1659).

Rhys Lloyd, Baron Lloyd of Kilgerran

Lloyd studied at Selwyn College, Cambridge, before taking a teaching post at Bembridge School on the Isle of Wight, where he involved himself in the trusteeship of various organisations relating to John Ruskin.

Sea View Yacht Club

The Sea View Yacht Club is in the village of Seaview, on the Isle of Wight, on the north-east coast of the island.

Seaview Services

In 1922 Richard Newell commenced operating a bus service between Seaview and Ryde.

Shamblord

Shamblord was an old name given to two towns on the Isle of Wight, which have since been renamed.

Shipping services of the London and South Western Railway

The company also operated a number of ships on the Isle of Wight service jointly with the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway.

Sophie Dawes, Baronne de Feuchères

She was born at St Helens, Isle of Wight, the daughter of an alcoholic fisherman named Richard Daw.

SS Eider

The bigger lifeboats located at Brook and Brighstone were launched, but they had much farther to travel.

Standish James O'Grady

Advised to move away from Ireland for the sake of his health, he passed his later years living with his eldest son, a clergyman in England, and died on the Isle of Wight.

The Wilderness

The Wilderness SSSI, Isle of Wight, a site of special scientific interest on the Isle of Wight

Transport on the Isle of Wight

This is based on most routes radiating from Newport, which is convenient for shoppers with Newport being the central shopping area of the Isle of Wight.

In the 1950s and 1960s, and before the Beeching Report, the Island boasted a comprehensive railway network based on a triangle of lines connecting Ryde, Newport, Sandown and Ventnor.

A sign used to greet visitors to the Island disembarking from the car ferry at Fishbourne, stating Island Roads are Different, Please Drive Carefully.

Cowes park and ride is currently the only park and ride site on the island, however there has been regular talk of building one for Newport in the future.

Vectidraco

In November 2008, the four years old Daisy Morris of Whitwell, Isle of Wight, an avid natural history collector, discovered some small bones in a rock below the cliff face of Atherfield Point at the southwest coast of Wight.

Wightbus

In the period of Cowes Week until 2008, Wightbus ran the "Sailbus", a free route which linked the Ward Avenue car parks with Baring Road, Castle Hill, Parade, Queen's Road, along the sea front to Gurnard, Woodvale Road, Baring Road, Crossfield Avenue (for the heliport and the coach setting down point) and the main events of Cowes for visitors.

Students under the age of 19, in full time education on the Isle of Wight previously received discount fares through a "Student Rider" scheme.

William Frederick Mitchell

William Frederick Mitchell (Calshot, 1845–1914, Ryde, Isle of Wight) was a British artist commissioned to paint many naval and merchant ships.


1924–25 Port Vale F.C. season

Whilst on the South Coast of England the players were rewarded for their hard work with a relaxing holiday, seeing sights such as the Isle of Wight, the Southampton docks, the HMS Victory, the Newbury races, and music hall star Gertie Gitana performing at the theatre.

A3055 road

Leeson Road, named after the 19th century Bonchurch resident Henry Beaumont Leeson, is the segment of the A3055 that runs from Ventnor, at the foot of St Boniface Down, along the clifftop above Bonchurch, the Bonchurch Landslips and the Devil's Chimney.

Ayton Castle

He remarried (2) Fanny Augusta (1821–1902) daughter of James Vine, in Puckaster, Isle of Wight.

Britten-Norman

The company's historic home is located at Bembridge on the Isle of Wight although airframes have been assembled under sub contract in Romania for more than 40 years.

Carisbrook

Carisbrook was named after the estate of early colonial settler James Macandrew (itself named after a castle on the Isle of Wight).

Cécile Bruyère

The French anti-religious laws of the early 20th century forced the whole community into exile in England, to the forerunner of the present St. Cecilia's Abbey, Ryde, on the Isle of Wight, where on 18 March 1909 Mother Cécile died.

Charles Cameron Shute

Charles Cameron Shute was the eldest son of Thomas Deane Shute of Fern Hill, Isle of Wight, and Bramshaw, Hampshire and his wife Charlotte née Cameron, daughter of General Neville Cameron of the East India Company army.

Charles Mayne Young

Julian took holy orders, serving as Chaplain at Hampton Court Palace and Rector of Ilmington, Warwickshire, and married, on 26 April 1832, Elizabeth Anne Georgiana, daughter of James Willis (of that family of Atherfield, Isle of Wight), Consul-General- later Governor- of Senegambia.

Chevalier D'Aux

Chevalier D'Aux was a senior French commander who, while leading a foraging party into the Isle of Wight to search for sources of clean water to replenish the stocks of a French fleet, which had just been forced to retire from Portsmouth, was attacked and killed in July 1545 by a group of the local Isle of Wight militia, at Bonchurch.

Cowes, Victoria

In 1865, a government surveyor Henry Cox returned from a holiday retreat in England and named the town he surveyed after the seaport town of Cowes on the Isle of Wight, England.

Formica cunicularia

:In the New Forest it occurs in earth-mounds, at Seaton under stones, in the Landslip, Isle of Wight, in the side of the cliff, and at Fairlight I found it in the side of the cliff and in earth-mounds in the undercliff - one of the nests being traced by tracking a worker which was carrying home a fly in its jaws.

FPT Industries

Working with Saunders Roe at Cowes on the Isle of Wight, the company became so important to the hovercraft industry that the now renamed FPT Industries was bought by the British Hovercraft Corporation in 1966.

Groote Beer

Marianna IV continued in service until July 1966 when it collided with the sand dredger Pen Avon off the Isle of Wight while leaving Southampton on a voyage to New York.

John Glynn

Glynn married, on 21 July 1763, Susanna Margaret, third daughter of Sir John Oglander of Nunwell in the Isle of Wight; she was born 1 September 1744, and died at Catherine Place, Bath, 20 May 1816.

John Hulke

He was a long-time collector from the Wealden cliffs of the Isle of Wight, and his work on vertebrate palaeontology included studies of Iguanodon and Hypsilophodon from the Wealden (Lower Cretaceous).

Julius Asclepiodotus

While Constantius sailed from Boulogne, Asclepiodotus took a section of the fleet and the legions from San Dun Sandouville and oppidum near Le Havre, slipping past Allectus's fleet at the Isle of Wight under cover of fog, and landed presumably in the vicinity of Southampton or Chichester, where he burned his ships.

Localgiving.com

The pilot phase of Localgiving.com began in autumn 2009 with a user group of eight Community Foundations supporting communities in Berkshire, London, Calderdale, Essex, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, Hertfordshire, Kent, and Scotland.

London Underground 1938 Stock

The only examples still in daily use are the six units that survive operating the Island Line service on the Isle of Wight, and allocated TOPS Class 483.

London Underground A60 and A62 Stock

The stock was one of Britain's longest-serving types of train, although far from the ex-1938 Stock still in use on the Isle of Wight around 75 years after construction, or the 81 years of Glasgow Underground rolling stock between 1896 and 1977.

Lonicera nitida

At Osborne House, a holiday home built in 1845 on the Isle of Wight for Queen Victoria and her husband Prince Albert, there are L. nitida shrubs clipped in the form of stags rising from beds of Felicia amelloides, Festuca glauca, and scarlet pelargoniums.

Morgan Morgan-Giles

So he took the train to London, passed through the turnstile at Lord's Cricket Ground; straight in, round and out again, and took the train down to Ryde, on the Isle of Wight, where father and son entered the race, and won; This was the Prince of Wales Cup, one of the most prestigious National dinghy races of the year.

Nunwell

Nunwell is the location of Nunwell House, near Brading on the Isle of Wight, which was the home of the Oglander family for many centuries.

Pier

The first recorded pier in England was Ryde Pier, opened in 1814 on the Isle of Wight, as a landing stage to allow ferries to and from the mainland to berth.

Princess Beatrice of the United Kingdom

After a year of persuasion, Queen Victoria agreed to the marriage, which took place at Whippingham on the Isle of Wight on 23 July 1885.

RML 9 inch 12 ton gun

In the late 1880s and early 1890s a small number of guns were adapted as high-angle coast defence guns around Britain : known battery locations were Tregantle Down Battery at Plymouth, Verne High Angle Battery at Portland and Steynewood Battery at Bembridge on the Isle of Wight.

Sammy Meston

He turned out occasionally for Newport (Isle of Wight), but took up employment as a "bookie's runner" before he died of a heart attack in October 1953 aged 51.

Shide, Isle of Wight

Shide railway station was opened in 1875 and closed in 1956.

Soundtrack Recordings from the Film Jimi Hendrix

The documentary (or rockumentary) was made in 1973 by Joe Boyd, John Head and Gary Weis for Warner Bros. The film contains concert footage from 1967 to 1970, including material from Isle of Wight and the Monterey Pop Festival.

St. Cecilia's Abbey, Solesmes

The French anti-religious laws of the early 20th century forced the whole community into exile in England, to the forerunner of the present St. Cecilia's Abbey, Ryde, on the Isle of Wight, where on 18 March 1909 Mother Cécile died.

The Silence of Dean Maitland

Set in a fictionalized Isle of Wight, particularly around Calbourne, it concerns an ambitious clergyman who accidentally kills the father of a young woman he has made pregnant, then allows his best friend to be wrongly convicted for the crime.

Warden Point Battery

Warden Point Battery is a battery on the Isle of Wight begun in 1862, that was originally armed with 7-inch and 9-inch rifled muzzle loaders on barbette mountings.

Wedding dress of Princess Alice

On 1 July 1862, in the dining room of Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, she married Prince Louis of Hesse.

Wessex Brigade

The depots were territorially organised, and Infantry Depot H at Bulford was the headquarters for the six county regiments that recruited in Berkshire, Devon, Dorset, Gloucestershire, Hampshire, the Isle of Wight and Wiltshire.

Westcourt Manor

Westcourt Manor (alternates: West Court Manor, or South Shorwell) is one of three manor houses, along with Woolverton and Northcourt, that is located in Shorwell, on the Isle of Wight, England.