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 | Isle of Wight Local Customs | Tips 1 - 10 of 34 |  |
 Old drawing of a IOW pub by LouiseTopp
Years ago lots of houses were bases for the fashionable, though cruel sport of cockfighting: & the name Fighting Cocks was routine. Totally rebuilt today, this inn lies amid Sandown & Newport. This is the lushest valley of the Isle of Wight - the spirit of the market gardening trade - & the inn is quieter than its name.
The White Horse
The Wight Horse was a fecundity sect of the Belgae - a tribe who engaged much of S.E. England between 50 BC & 50 AD. It is one of the first names given to public houses & this is one of the oldest pubs on the island. A charming village inn - a thatched roof, a beautiful garden - it has lots of old-world charm.
Royal Standard
Often established in the days when regiments going to war carried standards to bring people round together, this exacting name dates back to the Crusades.
Horse & Groom
A very fashionable local pub in the heart of a farming village, on the Yarmouth to Newport road. This name used to be seen on post & often coaching houses. Leave a Comment Website: Isle of Wight Nostalgia
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 Rock shop, Shanklin by Spincat
Rock is, traditionally, a stick of hard 'candy' coloured brightly on the outside, with a white centre. It often has writing through ihe centre of the stick: a message with a souvenir function, such as "welcome to The Isle of Wight" . Nowadays, it comes in all shapes and sizes: even horrid shapes, like rock dentures! Rock is made from sugar and glucose, isoften coloured a particularly livid pink, and is pulled into shape when nearly cool. Flavour is added - frequently mint. I am not sure how the letters 'get into it'!
I haven't seen rock in other countries (probably, other countries are too sensible!), though I have seen an American 'barber's pole' stick which I think forms part of a Christmas candy tradition, which is somewhat similar.
Rock's best hour? Graham Greene's 'Brighton Rock' .
This shop in Shaklin High St sells rock in many colours and flavours, including many unconventional shapes. it also sells shortbread in the shape of the Isle of Wight and a variety of other sweet and sticky things! Takes you back to childhood! Leave a Comment Phone: 91 High St, Shanklin
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 at the beach of the Osborne
Estate by tini58de
So there is quite a bit of the Victorian Heritage to be experienced here! Leave a Comment
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 Hallway of our hotel by tini58deLeave a Comment
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The Romans called the Island Vectis. In the Anglo-Saxon chronicle it is Wihte ealond, Wihtland or Wiht, followed by further variations of the spelling in the middle ages, such as Wicht, Wict, Whyht, Wyght and Wight. The derivation cannot be established with certainty but the name is probably of British origin and may be connected with the Welsh gwaith (work) the Latin Vectis (lever) which share a common root. It has been suggested that Wight could mean what has been raised i.e. above the sea. Leave a Comment
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 Newport Town Hall by budapest8
1827e---Turner paints while a guest at Cowes Castle
1829e---Ryde recognised as town under lighting and paving act
1830c---Alum Bay coloured sands are a tourist attraction
1830e__First passenger rail service opens
1830e---Limited action in conjunction with mainland 'labourers revolt'
1830e---All Solent crossings now have steamships
1831c__Electromagnetic Induction Engine invented
1831c---Broadlands lace factory employing nearly 800 people on 80 machines
1831e---A 12 year old future Queen Victoria holidays at Norris Castle
1832e__Reform Bill widens election suffrage and changes political influence
1832e---Population "nearly all more or less concerned with smuggling"
1832e---Island MPs reduced from six to two
1833e__Abolition of slavery throughout the Empire
1833e---Royal Yacht Squadron founded at Cowes
1834e---The first of several years of drought hits farming
1835e---John Nash dies
1836e---Farms sending 8,000 lambs to London per season
1836e---IW Trustees Savings Bank opened (first banking for poor)
1836e---" 80% of the population consume contraband spirits tobacco and tea"
1836e---IW 'Guardians of the Poor' become subservient to new Poor Law
1836e---'Clarendon' shipwrecked at Chale: timber used to enlarge pub
1837e---Economic grievances cause riots at Tory election victory
1838e__Queen Victoria's coronation
1838e---Existing St Catherine's lighthouse built
1838e---Parkhurst barracks adapted to take juvenile prisoners
1838e---Improved postal services to (remote) southern districts
1838e---Northwood House, Cowes, built
1839c---Ventnor beginning to develop housing as winter haven for invalids
1840c---Medina Cement company established
1840c---Many poor taking advantage of assisted emigration to Canada
1840e__Uniform Penny Postage applied throughout the country
1840e---First Roman Villa discovered, at Rock, Brighstone
1842c---First juvenile prisoners shipped from Parkhurst to New World Leave a Comment
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 Marconi by budapest8
Julia Margaret Cameron - The photographer moved to the Isle of Wight in 1860 when she bought Dimbola in Freshwater. She was given her first camera three years later and shortly afterwards began to win international awards, and to hold exhibitions. She left the Island in 1875 to return to Ceylon where her husband owned coffee plantations. She died there in 1879.
Professor John Milne - He spent nearly 20 years in Japan studying seismology - a science which he virtually founded in its modern form. Born in Liverpool in 1850 he retired from Japan to Shile Hill House in 1895. He built an observatory there and many visitors and students came to his house. He died in 1913 and is buried in St. Paul's, Barton.
Guglielmo Marconi - Marconi was born in 1874 and moved to England in 1896 after the Italian post office refused to test his new wireless equipment. His mother was a Jameson of whisky fame. He wanted to promote his work on the wireless telegraphy and England was the obvious place. In 1897 he chose Alum Bay as one of the sites for his experiment. He erected a 40 metre mast outside the Needles Hotel from where he transmitted to the Haven Hotel in Poole nearly 20 miles away. Experiments were carried out for about a year, including one involving a link-up between the Prince of Wales, on the Royal Yacht Osborne and Queen Victoria at Osborne House. Marconi then transferred his attention to cross-channel links. He experimented from Knowles Farm, Niton where there is a stone cut with the following inscription - "This is to commemorate that Marconi set up a wireless experimental station here in A.D. 1900". While in Niton he stayed at the Royal Sandrock Hotel (see the Undercliff photo pages for a picture of the hotel now, sadly demolished). Leave a Comment
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 Ryde Town Hall by budapest8
1898e---First electric power cables laid (Ventnor?)
1898e---J Samuel White established as a Private Limited Company
1899e__Boer War starts
1900e---John Milne builds earthquake laboratory at Shide
1900e---Just twenty cars on Island roads
1901e__Queen Victoria dies
1901e---Edward VII gives Osborne House to the Nation
1901e---Cowes week: "a fixture in the calendar of society"
1903e---Osborne House Naval College opens
1904e---The Seely Library opens in Newport
1909c__Commercial manufacture of Bakelite launches the age of plastic
1911e__Lloyd George introduces National Health Insurance Bill
1912e---Quarr Abbey built by architect Paul Bellot
1912e---Princess Beatrice moves from Osborne House to Carisbrooke Castle
1912e---Saunders Roe launch worlds first amphibious aircraft
1912e---Camp Hill prison opens as an experiment to treat habitual prisoners
1913c---High unemployment prompts many Islanders to leave for the colonies
1914e__World War 1
1917e---Isle of Wight Rifles lose over 700 men at the Battle of Gaza
1919e__British Empire at its height
1920e__Marconi opens first public broadcasting station
1920e---First council houses built
1921e---First regular bus service: Cowes-Newport
1921e---Population 94,000
1923e---Southern Railway take over Island rail companies
1926e__The General Strike
1928e---Enormous landslide at Blackgang
1929c---Farming industry dominated by dairy products
1931e---Camp Hill becomes a Borstal Institution
1936e---Saunders Roe open new purpose built flying boat works
1938e---One of the first Radar Stations built on St Boniface Down
1939e__World War 2 Leave a Comment
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 section of PLUTO by budapest8
1942 ___ My Great Uncle, Jack Hutchings who helped build PLUTO and spent
his retirement in Osbourne House. There is a memorial plaque to
PLUTO in Ventnor with his name on.PLUTO (Pipeline Under The Ocean) One of World War II’s most secret weapons was not munitions, but an innovative undersea pipeline system that delivered a million gallons of fuel a day. The allied superiority in oil supplies provided by operation PLUTO was a decisive factor in the battles in Europe PLUTO was one of the most remarkable events of the war - the installation of an underwater pipeline to supply our Forces on the Continent with petrol. Leave a Comment
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 South Wight mill house by budapest8
1220c---Rabbits introduced
1238e---Charter granted to Newtown by Bishop of Winchester
1250c---Quarr Abbey establish salt water fish ponds on the Medina
1256e---Charter for new settlement at Swainston
1262e---Isobella de Fortibus is Lady of IW
1269e---Typically, 166 cheeses and 16 stone of butter from a manor's summer dairy
1272e---Barton oratory built by rectors of Godshill and Shalfleet
1272e---Earliest record of 'East Shamlord', now East Cowes district
1280e---Isobella de Fortibus claims all wrecks of the sea
1282c---Isobella de Fortibus and Quarr Abbey in armed dispute over tithes
1285e---Edward I staying at Swainstone, with a view to acquisition
1293e---Isobella de Fortibus dies and Crown acquires IW
1294c---Defences and infrastructure improved at Crown's behest
1296e---Carisbrooke Castle reverts from IW Lords 'seat' to military centre
1296e---100 crossbow men imported to help defend anticipated French invasion
1299e---Calbourne Mill first mentioned
1300c---'La Ride' (Ryde) fishing village recorded
1300x---Quarries at Binstead past best quality stone
1302c---Farm produce being shipped to Scotland to support war with Scots
1305e__Yard and acre standardised
1312c---St Catherine's Hill lighthouse built as part of oratory
1324e---System of 18 warning beacons established across the Island
1334e---Mottistone recorded as having sixty taxpayers
1335e---State of Emergency declared in face of imminent French invasion
1338e__Hundred Year's War under way: French burn Portsmouth
1338e---Some landowners leave Island in fear of French invasion
1339e---Build up of arms and men in readiness for French
1340e---French raid gains ground at St Helens before being repulsed
1346e---Edward III sets sail from St Helens to invade Normandy
1349e__Black Death widespread
1350x__Artillery cannon coming into general use
1350x---Hall House of Chale Abbey farm built by John de Langford
Pages from Isle of Wight History Centre Leave a Comment
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