Photos from the sublime Isle of Wight: From Rock'n'Roll to rolling rocks

A long weekend at one of my favourite UK spots, Ventnor in the Isle of Wight. I get there usually at least once a year, and despite the small size of the island there is always lots to see. The endless variety in the landscape makes it a fantastic place to go walking, and we managed to complete three very contrasting walks in different parts of the island. 

This is a long blog, so I've broken it down into various subsections. Scroll down until you find something you like.

It's only Rock'n'Roll but I like it



As with all seaside places, there is much to amuse the eye. My favourite from this trip is this memorial to Elvis Presley, perched atop a steep cliff in Shanklin. Perhaps it wasn't the burgers that finished him off after all, but walking too close to the edge while on a week's holiday to the island? But conspiracy theorists may be interested to learn that I'm sure I saw him working at Chubby's Chunky Chip Shop in Shanklin.



I also loved this improvised curtain in Ventnor. Kittens rule!

Sublime time

With its steep slopes, unstable cliffs, hairpin bends, vertiginous chines and dramatic landslip, Ventnor is a great example of a sublime landscape (one of the few in southern England) and the Victorians built in a style that only serves to reinforce this sense of awe-inspiring grandeur and terrible beauty.

At Rylstone Gardens (location of the aforementioned Elvis plaque) is a fantastic Swiss-style chalet, while Ventnor boasts such evocative street names as "Alpine" and "Zig Zag" roads. You get a sense that the Victorians wanted nothing more than to imagine Southern Wight as an outpost of Switzerland or Austria. Buildings in the alpine and gothic style add to the feeling of gloomy majesty, which I imagine found great favour with Queen Victoria and other luminaries such as Dickens, Tennyson and Turner. There's a very exotic painting of Blackgang Chine by Peter De Wint, held by the V&A, that shows  a mass of rocks, trees and other debris sliding into the sea.



At Wheeler's Bay, where the Knit Nurse and I were staying, the unstable cliffs are guarded by concrete, and plenty of it. Among the defence measures are these strangely shaped blocks, which help to dissipate the strength of the waves.



Further west, towards the glorious Freshwater Bay, the countryside is slipping into the sea with indecent haste. Part of the coastal military road is down to one lane after recent falls (on 23 February a landslide brought the cliff virtually to the road's edge, making the journey slightly terrifying) while at a National Trust car park, many of the parking spaces have already been claimed by the sea.

Flower power






Although spring is late this year - no bluebells yet to be seen - the hedgerows were still crammed to bursting with flowers, made all the more bright and hyper-real in the sunshine.

The winter of our discontent



Finally, a plea for something to be done about the wonderful Winter Gardens in Ventnor. Overlooking the suitably sublime Cascade, the Winter Gardens were built in 1935, modelled on Bexhill's ultramodern De La Warr Pavilion. I need to seek out Pevsner to discover who the architect was to this building, which features a glazed stair tower. But as you can see from this archive photo, many of the windows have been blocked over the years and alterations have left it a shadow of its former self.


Postcard image taken from www.postcards.shalfleet.net

It's still a great place for a pint (real ales nonetheless) while overlooking the sea, but you do get a strong sense that the Winter Gardens could be an incredible asset for Ventnor, perhaps as a venue for contemporary art and performance. Somebody do something!