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Ventnor
Ventnor maps
Historic maps of Ventnor and the local area, hand-drawn by Ordnance Survey and Samuel Lewis. View all Ventnor maps
Ventnor area books
Displaying 1 of 4 books about Ventnor and the local area. View all books for this area
You can read extracts and browse photos from these books.
Memories of Ventnor
Displaying a selection of personal
memories of Ventnor.
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Forty Years Ago.
Sept 1971, and Ventnor became the place of our honeymoon. We had a fabulous week, the weather was good, a lovely hotel just up the hill from the beach. At the end of it, we were very brave and returned to the mainland by hovercraft - a really new form of transport.The large one's now in Ryde, well ours would have looked like a dinky toy next to them - six people and the captain filled the craft. Since then, we have been back many times and now we go even more as our daughter and family live there in Wootton Bridge .The island has many good places to visit ,one of our favourites is the Garlik Festival. Fancy a holiday? Give the island a go, it's a great place to relax.
Caruso Who?
I well remember walking home past St. Catherine's one cold dark evening, prior to Christmas when the choir to be practising for the Christmas services. The lights through the beautiful stained glass windows and the sound of the choir was all the encouragement I needed to join and I subsequently spent an enjoyable few months, trying to sing, which ended somewhat abruptly, when they found out where the noise was coming from. Happy Days
Anson Crash
We moved to Ventnor from Carisbrooke in 1947, when I was 6 years old, so my memory isn't too good, but I remember an Avro Anson, which was obviously carrying newspapers, as the Ventnor Mercury confirmed, to the Channel Islands, colliding with one of the Radar Station pylons. Wreckage was widely scattered and at least one engine and an undercarriage leg came to rest in Combe Bottom, in bushes adjacent to the small arms range, which I last visited several years ago. The frightening thing about that incident was that Muriel Dixon, an elder cousin of mine, was walking her dog on the down at that time, in the dense fog responsible for the collision, and could only hear it. I believe, but could be wrong, that this took place on the day of HM's marriage to Prince Phillip and must have given Muriel some scary moments. One of the Cheetah engines laid in blackthorn bushes, surrounded by old newspapers, for twenty or more years and my ten year old son... Read more
Ventnor
I was born in Ventnor and although I have lived in Kent for many years Ventnor will always be "My home".
Old Metropole Hotel
Sorry to see an apartment building on the site of the old Metropole Hotel. As a young lad from Scotland, around 1960, I took a job there as a waiter with a friend. I remember taking part in a waiters' race along the promenade. Wilfred Pickles and his wife Mabel stayed at the hotel whilst recording their radio show at the local theatre. I forget the name of the show. It was a quiz show and he would say if the contestant won: "Give 'em the money Barney." Alastair.
Royal National Hospital, Ventnor
I worked as a nurse at the hospital from 1955 to 1956 and went back for the first time in June of this year. It was really nostalgic to be there again, even though the hospital has long gone the Botanic Gardens are still as I remember some of them from being the hospital gardens. The car park is where the hospital used to be and I could still visualise the buildings, the lodge is now belonging to the cricket club but it still has got the hospital crest on it which I found remarkable. The Nurses Home as I remember it from living there is still the same, all the years since then have not altered it in any way. It is now a residential home and I went in and the matron was so kind and took me in and let me see my old room, which was remarkable and filled me with nostalgia. We had a bunny run from the home, under the road to the basement of... Read more
Isle of Wight memories
Family Holidays in The 1950s
I was born in 1942 and brought up in Walthamstow in NE London. We were a working class family and Dad always managed to provide us with 2 weeks' holiday somewhere. How we came to holiday in Wroxall is still a bit of a mystery. Neither Mum nor Dad had ever been to the Isle of Wight before. In August 1952 we had the first of three annual fortnights holidays on the Island. The first year,1952, we stayed in a different lodging each week. I expect the accommodation was found in 'Daltons Weekly'. The first week we stayed at a Guest House called 'Tintern' which was an old detached Victorian house with rooms both on the ground and first floors let out as guest rooms. The house was located on St John's Road, Wroxall It was run by a Mrs Abbott, assisted to some extent by her husband Mr Abbott. No one of knew their Christian names. I recall that there were four guest rooms in total, with one being a... Read more
