Would Charles Dickens lie to you? The first time he saw Winterbourne, a Victorian stone mansion set high in flower-filled gardens overlooking the sea, the much-travelled author called it “the prettiest place I ever saw in my life, at home or abroad” . And he promptly settled there long enough to write most of David Copperfield.
It’s hard not to speak in superlatives about the Isle of Wight – often called The Poetic Isle – as long as you stay away from some of the more crowded tourist spots which are much too honky-tonk now.
Fortunately, most of the diamond-shaped 20-kilometre-by-42-kilometre island has managed to remain serenely unspoiled.
You can wander for hours along lonely coastal roads and the winding footpaths that criss-cross the picturesque countryside and discover a marvellously preserved long-ago world of thatched cottages, time-mellowed farmhouses and hospitable old-fashioned inns.
You can even follow in Dickens’ footsteps and stay at Winterbourne. The mansion near Bonchurch has been turned into one of the poshest hotels on the island (about $120 to $150 a night for two, including a hearty English breakfast).
The waterfall that so entranced Dickens that he arranged for a carpenter to convert it into “a perpetual shower bath” is still there, as well as a more modern heated swimming pool, also in the tree-shaded gardens. And you can still take Dickens’ favorite walk down the private path at the foot of the rolling lawns to a sheltered beach.
You can also walk from the hotel’s main entrance a pleasant mile along steep-ish streets including the aptly-named Zig Zag Road and past an adorable duckpond, into the prettily terraced clifftop town of Ventnor. The poet Swinburne, whose family home was near here, was so inspired by the luxuriant sub-tropical plants and shrubbery that flourish in its sheltered climate that he wrote some of his finest poems here. (the nearby Botanic Gardens are a major tourist attraction now.)
Poet laureate Tennyson found the fresh air at Freshwater Bay so pure and intoxicating he said one should have to pay for the privilege of breathing it. You can do just that if you stay at Farringford Hall, where he spent much of the last 40 years of his life. His handsome Victorian home has been extended into a relaxing country hotel now, set in 33 acres of parkland overlooking the Tennyson Downs. It has its own golf course, as well as a swimming pool and croquet lawns.
It’s a little less chi-chi than Winterbourne, but a little less expensive too (about $70 to $120 a night for two, including breakfast and all the fresh air you can breathe). You can also rent simple cottages on the spacious grounds. (A good buy for families.)
Keats adored the village of Shanklin with its picturesque huddle of thatched cottages that still exist in the much-photographed Old Village, and he spent so much time striding along the clifftop walk overlooking the sea that it’s called Keats’ Green now. Longfellow rhapsodized over the remarkable “Chine” there, a deep chasm filled with ferns and waterfalls where you can clamber down to the sea.
Darwin wrote much of his Origin of Species on the island, and called Shanklin “the nicest seaside place we have ever seen.”
Inevitably it’s become a victim of its own enormous charms, and it’s so over-run by tourists in the summer season that it’s hard to find space in the Old Village’s preciously-preserved thatched cottages that have mostly been turned into picture-postcard pubs now, such as the Crab Inn.
Shanklin’s newer town section, like neighboring Sandown with its popular balmy beaches, is almost door-to-door hotels and Bed and Breakfast places now – including the island’s most modern blockbuster Cliff Tops Hotel, which seems stridently out of place in the gently old-world Isle of Wight.
It was Queen Victoria who started the holiday rush to the island, when she chose to spend so much time at Osborne House, the remarkable Italianate mansion designed by Prince Albert for her 1,000-acre estate near East Cowes. That hard-to-please lady wrote enthusiastically that “it is impossible to imagine a prettier spot.”
She died there in 1901, and Osborne House has become a fascinating museum.
One of her royal forerunners, Charles I, had less reason to enjoy his stay on the Isle of Wight. He was imprisoned in Carisbrooke Castle until he was taken to London for execution. The castle has become a museum too.
Charles II had happier memories of the Isle. He was an honored guest of the governor there, at a 17th-century mansion overlooking the Solent in Yarmouth. It’s one of the most pleasantly relaxed old-time inns on the island now, the George. We stayed in the room where Charles II slept (it’s duly distinguished by a plaque at the door and a brooding portrait of the monarch over the mantel), and found Yarmouth one of the nicest and least touristy places on the island.
So is another yachtsman’s paradise on the opposite and more sheltered east side, the charmingly restful Bembridge.
Cowes is a busier yachtsman’s haven, especially during Cowes Week. Ryde, where most people arrive from the mainland via the Portsmouth ferry, is one of the most commercial centres, next to central Newport.
Besides the better-known areas, there’s a fascinating variety of quiet, little off-the-beaten-track villages to discover. It’s not hard to get around to find them – the island has a super bus system that tootles so enthusiastically from one enchanting point to another that you hardly need a car there. And they claim the best views in the island are from the top of their double deckers.
Haute cuisine isn’t the Isle of Wight’s strongest point, though they’re taking it more seriously now, and more and more gourmet places are starting to pop up. They’ve even inaugurated an annual Garlic Festival, and claim their fragrant bulbs are so good they export them to France.
I found some of the most enjoyable meals I had there were in the quaint little pubs and tea shops that dot the countryside.
Everything the Italian owner cooked in the modest tucked-away Bonchurch Inn was irreproachable, though simple. So was the food in the two unrelated tea shops called The Ginger Jar, one in Freshwater and the other in Bembridge, and in the tea shop at Fort Redoubt overlooking Freshwater Bay. The tea shop at Fort Redoubt offers one of the most spectacular views on the island along with its tasty home-made baking – and it’s supposed to be haunted by two friendly ghosts.
