County in England
Isle of Wight
A hovercraft first, one of Jimi Hendrix's last big gigs, a dinosaur graveyard and a Queen's seaside palace: the Isle of Wight packs a lot into 147 square miles.
Key information
- County
- Isle of Wight
- Nation
- England
- Population
- about 140,000 (2021 Census)
- Area
- about 380 square kilometres (147 square miles)
- Known for
- Cowes Week, Osborne House, the Needles, dinosaur fossils, the Isle of Wight Festival
- What locals are called
- Vectensians or Islanders; those born there are Caulkheads, newcomers are Overners
- Famous people
- Queen Victoria (resident), Robert Hooke, Dr Thomas Arnold, Anthony Minghella
- Football clubs
- Newport (IOW) and Cowes Sports
About Isle of Wight
The legend of the King of the Isle of Wight
There is a wonderful story that in 1444 Henry VI crowned his friend Henry de Beauchamp as King of the Isle of Wight. It is a legend rather than history. Beauchamp was made Duke of Warwick in 1445 and died in 1446, but the tale of the island king has stuck. The island's long habit of feeling a little apart from the mainland has stuck too. That sense of separateness shows in the vocabulary. Locals are Islanders, or Vectensians, from the Roman name for the island, Vectis. Those born there are Caulkheads, a word said to come from the caulking of wooden ships. Anyone who has moved in from across the Solent is an Overner. The Romans left their mark at Brading, where a villa still shows off its mosaics. Much later, Carisbrooke Castle held Charles I as a prisoner in 1647 and 1648. The castle is also famous for its donkeys, who still walk a great wooden wheel to draw water from the well.
Queen Victoria's seaside escape
The island's grandest chapter began when Queen Victoria and Prince Albert bought Osborne House near East Cowes. Albert worked on the design with the builder Thomas Cubitt, and the result was an Italian-style palace by the sea, with a terrace, a private beach and a Swiss-style cottage where the royal children learned to cook and garden. Victoria died at Osborne on 22 January 1901. Her patronage had already turned the island into the fashionable place to be. Ryde Pier, opened in 1814, is the oldest seaside pier in England, and Ventnor drew visitors seeking sea air so mild that its botanic garden grows plants that struggle elsewhere in Britain. The poet Tennyson lived at Farringford in Freshwater, the photographer Julia Margaret Cameron worked a few doors away, and Karl Marx holidayed in Ventnor in 1881.
Where yachting got its biggest prize
Cowes is one of the world's great sailing towns. The Royal Yacht Squadron began in 1815 as the Yacht Club, founded at the Thatched House Tavern in St James's, London, and Cowes later became its home. Cowes Week, first held in 1826, is still one of the biggest regattas anywhere, with hundreds of boats on the Solent. The island also gave sport the America's Cup. In 1851 the Royal Yacht Squadron staged a race around the Isle of Wight, sailed clockwise, and the American schooner America won the trophy, which was later renamed after her. The Round the Island Race still circles the island every summer, though it runs anticlockwise. On land, football is a small-scale affair. The island has no league club, but Newport (IOW), nicknamed the Port, and Cowes Sports keep the local game going.
Hovercraft, rockets and a wireless first
For such a small place, the island has an impressive record of engineering firsts. In 1897 Guglielmo Marconi ran wireless experiments at the Needles, and the work led to a transmitting station at the Needles Hotel in Alum Bay. In 1959 the Saunders-Roe SR.N1, built at Cowes, became the first hovercraft to cross the English Channel. Hovertravel's service between Ryde and Southsea, which began in 1965, is still running. The Needles were also a rocket site. Engines for the Black Arrow rocket were tested at High Down, and in 1971 a Black Arrow launched the satellite Prospero, still Britain's only satellite put into orbit by a British rocket. There is a quirkier survivor too. The Island Line railway runs on ageing former London Underground trains.
Chalk needles, coloured sand and dinosaurs
The Needles are three jagged chalk stacks off the western tip, with a lighthouse added in 1859. Nearby Alum Bay has cliffs in bands of red, ochre and white sand, and visitors have long filled glass ornaments with them. The south-west coast is a dinosaur hotspot. Erosion around Brighstone and Compton Bay keeps exposing Cretaceous bones and footprints, which makes the island one of the best fossil-hunting places in Europe. Dinosaur Isle, in Sandown, is the museum devoted to the finds. The island is also one of the few places in England where red squirrels still thrive. Blackgang Chine, opened in 1843, ranks among the oldest amusement parks in Britain, and it is still perched on a crumbling cliff.
Hendrix, garlic and island flavours
The Isle of Wight Festival of 1968 to 1970 was one of the great rock gatherings. Bob Dylan headlined in 1969, and in August 1970 Jimi Hendrix played one of his last major shows, weeks before he died. The festival was revived in 2002 and has since become a fixture of the summer. Food here is local and seasonal. The island is known for garlic, tomatoes grown in the sunny climate near Arreton, crab and lobster from the coast, and Isle of Wight Blue cheese. The Minghella family's ice cream is another island institution. Anthony Minghella, who directed The English Patient, was born in Ryde and grew up in the family business. Robert Hooke, the scientist who coined the word "cell" for the building blocks of life, was born in Freshwater in 1635. Thomas Arnold, the reforming headmaster of Rugby School, was born in West Cowes in 1795.