Freshwater, Isle of Wight
Encyclopedia
Freshwater is a large village and civil parish at the western end of the Isle of Wight
Isle of Wight
The Isle of Wight is a county and the largest island of England, located in the English Channel, on average about 2–4 miles off the south coast of the county of Hampshire, separated from the mainland by a strait called the Solent...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. Freshwater Bay is a small cove on the south coast of the Island which also gives its name to the nearby part of Freshwater.
Freshwater sits at the western end of the region known as the Back of the Wight
Back of the Wight
Back of the Wight is an area on the Isle of Wight, England that has a unique history and social background. Part of this stems from the fact that the area was and still is very cut off from the rest of the island and is made up of small villages strung out along the coast, such as Brighstone,...
which is a popular tourist area.
Freshwater is close to steep chalk
Chalk Formation
The Chalk Group is a lithostratigraphic unit in the northwestern part of Europe. It is characterised by thick deposits of chalk, a soft porous white limestone, deposited in a marine environment during the Upper Cretaceous period.Chalk is a limestone that consists of coccolith biomicrite...
cliffs. It was the birthplace of physicist
Physics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
Robert Hooke
Robert Hooke
Robert Hooke FRS was an English natural philosopher, architect and polymath.His adult life comprised three distinct periods: as a scientific inquirer lacking money; achieving great wealth and standing through his reputation for hard work and scrupulous honesty following the great fire of 1666, but...
and was the home of Poet Laureate
Poet Laureate
A poet laureate is a poet officially appointed by a government and is often expected to compose poems for state occasions and other government events...
Alfred Lord Tennyson
Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson
Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson, FRS was Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom during much of Queen Victoria's reign and remains one of the most popular poets in the English language....
.
Landmarks
The "Arch Rock" was a well-known local landmark that collapsed on the 25th of October, 1992. The neighbouring "Stag Rock" is so named because supposedly a stag leaped to the rock from the cliff to escape during a hunt. Another huge slab fell off the cliff face in 1968, and is now known as the "Mermaid Rock".The hills above Freshwater are named after Tennyson. On the nearby Tennyson Down
Tennyson Down
Tennyson Down is a hill at the west end of the Isle of Wight just south of Totland. Tennyson Down is a grassy, whale-backed ridge of chalk which rises to 482 ft/147m above sea level. Tennyson Down is named after the poet Lord Tennyson who lived at nearby Farringdon House for nearly 40 years...
is a Cornish
Cornwall
Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...
granite
Granite
Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...
cross erected in 1897 in tribute to Tennyson, “by the people of Freshwater, and other friends in England and America.” There is also a hill in the area called 'Hooke Hill', named for Robert Hooke.
All Saints' Church, Freshwater
All Saints' Church, Freshwater
All Saints' Church, Freshwater is a parish church in the Church of England located in Freshwater, Isle of Wight.-History:The church is medieval. is one of the oldest churches on the Isle of Wight, and was listed in the Domesday survey of 1086. Mark Whatson is the pastor of All Saints, which is an...
is one of the oldest churches on the Isle of Wight, and was listed in the Domesday survey
Domesday Book
Domesday Book , now held at The National Archives, Kew, Richmond upon Thames in South West London, is the record of the great survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086...
of 1086. Mark Whatson is the pastor of All Saints, which is an Anglican church in the Anglican Diocese of Portsmouth
Anglican Diocese of Portsmouth
The Diocese of Portsmouth is an administrative division of the Church of England Province of Canterbury in England. The diocese covers south-east Hampshire and the Isle of Wight...
. A primary school associated with the church is nearby. There is a marble memorial commemorating Tennyson in All Saints Church. Tennyson's wife Emily and other family members are buried in the church cemetery. The church is also the site of a memorial to Tennyson's son, Lionel Tennyson, who died of malaria
Malaria
Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of humans and other animals caused by eukaryotic protists of the genus Plasmodium. The disease results from the multiplication of Plasmodium parasites within red blood cells, causing symptoms that typically include fever and headache, in severe cases...
in 1886.
Dimbola Lodge
Dimbola Lodge was the Isle of Wight home of the Victorian pioneer photographer Julia Margaret Cameron from 1860 to 1875.It is now the home of the Julia Margaret Cameron Trust, and a photographic museum.-History of the property:...
, the home of Julia Margaret Cameron
Julia Margaret Cameron
Julia Margaret Cameron was a British photographer. She became known for her portraits of celebrities of the time, and for photographs with Arthurian and other legendary themes....
and now a photographic museum, is in the village of Freshwater Bay, which is part of Freshwater.
Tennyson's son, Hallam
Hallam Tennyson, 2nd Baron Tennyson
Hallam Tennyson, 2nd Baron Tennyson, GCMG, PC , the second Governor-General of Australia, was born at Chapel House, Twickenham, in Surrey, England. Named after his father's late friend Arthur Hallam, he was the elder son of Alfred Tennyson, the most popular and prominent poet of late Victorian...
donated land for a new church in Freshwater Bay. Hallam's wife Audrey suggested that the church be named for St. Agnes
Saint Agnes
Agnes of Rome is a virgin–martyr, venerated as a saint in the Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, the Anglican Communion, and Lutheranism. She is one of seven women, excluding the Blessed Virgin, commemorated by name in the Canon of the Mass...
. St. Agnes' Church, Freshwater
St. Agnes' Church, Freshwater
St. Agnes' Church, Freshwater is a parish church in the Church of England located in Freshwater, Isle of Wight.-History:The church dates from 1908 and is by the architect Isaac Jones....
was consecrated August 12, 1908. It is the only thatched church on the Isle of Wight.
Freshwater was the site of the largest station on the Freshwater, Yarmouth and Newport Railway that operated from July 20, 1889 to September 21, 1953. The station location is now occupied by a supermarket and garden centre.
Afton Marsh is found near the source of the Western Yar
Western Yar
The River Yar on the Isle of Wight, England, rises near the beach at Freshwater Bay, on the south coast of the island and flows only a few miles north to Yarmouth, on the north coast, where it meets the Solent. Most of the river is a tidal estuary...
, a river whose estuary runs north to Yarmouth
Yarmouth, Isle of Wight
Yarmouth is a port and civil parish in the western part of the Isle of Wight, off the southern coast of mainland England. The town is named for its location at the mouth of the small Western Yar river...
. Afton Marsh is a Site of Special Scientific Interest
Site of Special Scientific Interest
A Site of Special Scientific Interest is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom. SSSIs are the basic building block of site-based nature conservation legislation and most other legal nature/geological conservation designations in Great Britain are based upon...
that has been designated a Local Nature Reserve
Local Nature Reserve
Local nature reserve or LNR is a designation for nature reserves in the United Kingdom. The designation has its origin in the recommendations of the Wild Life Conservation Special Committee which established the framework for nature conservation in the United Kingdom and suggested a national suite...
.
At the western end of Freshwater Bay on a bluff
Cliff
In geography and geology, a cliff is a significant vertical, or near vertical, rock exposure. Cliffs are formed as erosion landforms due to the processes of erosion and weathering that produce them. Cliffs are common on coasts, in mountainous areas, escarpments and along rivers. Cliffs are usually...
are the remains of Fort Redoubt
Freshwater Redoubt
Freshwater Redoubt, also known as Fort Redoubt is an old Palmerston fort built in Freshwater Bay on the western end of the Isle of Wight. Construction work for the fort began in 1855 and was completed in 1856. It was finally sold in 1928 and has now been converted into a private residence....
, also known as Fort Freshwater or Freshwater Redoubt, a Palmerston Fort. Fort Redoubt was built in 1855-1856 to protect Freshwater Bay, and was in use until the early 20th century. It was sold by the military in 1928. Presently, part of it is a private residence, and other portions are being developed as holiday flats.
Two unusual structures that have been described as ice houses, pottery kilns or crematoria are found on Moons Hill in Freshwater. Robert Walker was the first to excavate these features in the 1890s, and he thought they were evidence of a Phoenicia
Phoenicia
Phoenicia , was an ancient civilization in Canaan which covered most of the western, coastal part of the Fertile Crescent. Several major Phoenician cities were built on the coastline of the Mediterranean. It was an enterprising maritime trading culture that spread across the Mediterranean from 1550...
n settlement in Freshwater. Chemical analyses suggest that they were most likely lime kilns.
Famous residents
The renowned scientist Robert HookeRobert Hooke
Robert Hooke FRS was an English natural philosopher, architect and polymath.His adult life comprised three distinct periods: as a scientific inquirer lacking money; achieving great wealth and standing through his reputation for hard work and scrupulous honesty following the great fire of 1666, but...
(1635–1703) was born in Freshwater in 1635. His father John Hooke was the curate
Curate
A curate is a person who is invested with the care or cure of souls of a parish. In this sense "curate" correctly means a parish priest but in English-speaking countries a curate is an assistant to the parish priest...
of All Saints Church in Freshwater. When Hooke's father died in 1648, Hooke left Freshwater for London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
to be apprenticed to portrait painter Peter Lely
Peter Lely
Sir Peter Lely was a painter of Dutch origin, whose career was nearly all spent in England, where he became the dominant portrait painter to the court.-Life:...
. After that, he went to Westminster School
Westminster School
The Royal College of St. Peter in Westminster, almost always known as Westminster School, is one of Britain's leading independent schools, with the highest Oxford and Cambridge acceptance rate of any secondary school or college in Britain...
and then Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
.
George Morland
George Morland
George Morland was an English painter of animals and rustic scenes.-Life:Morland was born in London, the 3rd son of Henry Robert Morland , artist, engraver and picture restorer...
, a famous painter, lived in Freshwater in a structure known as the "Cabin" around 1800.
British
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
Poet laureate
Poet Laureate
A poet laureate is a poet officially appointed by a government and is often expected to compose poems for state occasions and other government events...
Alfred Lord Tennyson
Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson
Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson, FRS was Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom during much of Queen Victoria's reign and remains one of the most popular poets in the English language....
lived at nearby Farringford House
Farringford House
Farringford House is a large manor house, with beautiful gardens, a large front garden where helicopters land, a restaurant called the 'Bistro' which has regular livebands and a previous Masterchef programme winner as a chef, outside swimming pool, tennis courts, holiday homes and a 9 hole golf...
(on the road between Freshwater and Alum Bay
Alum Bay
Alum Bay is a bay near the westernmost point of the Isle of Wight, England, within sight of the Needles. Of geological interest and a tourist attraction, the bay is noted for its multi-coloured sand cliffs.-Geology:...
). Tennyson lived at Farringford from 1853 until the end of his life in 1892. Tennyson wrote of Farringford:
Tennyson rented Farringford in 1853, and then bought it in 1856. He found that there were too many starstruck tourists who pestered him in Farringford, so he moved to "Aldworth", a stately home on a hill known as Blackdown
Blackdown, Sussex
Blackdown, or Black Down, is the highest hill in the historic county of Sussex, at 280 metres , and is second only to Leith Hill in southeastern England....
between Lurgashall
Lurgashall
Lurgashall is a village and civil parish in the Chichester district of West Sussex, England. It is 6.5 km north west of Petworth and just inside the new South Downs National Park. The church of St Laurence, The Noah's Ark pub, the old school and several old houses are built around a picturesque...
and Fernhurst
Fernhurst
Fernhurst is a village and civil parish in the Chichester District of West Sussex, England. It is located on the A286 Guildford to Chichester road, three miles south of Haslemere...
, about 2 km south of Haslemere
Haslemere
Haslemere is a town in Surrey, England, close to the border with both Hampshire and West Sussex. The major road between London and Portsmouth, the A3, lies to the west, and a branch of the River Wey to the south. Haslemere is approximately south-west of Guildford.Haslemere is surrounded by hills,...
in West Sussex
West Sussex
West Sussex is a county in the south of England, bordering onto East Sussex , Hampshire and Surrey. The county of Sussex has been divided into East and West since the 12th century, and obtained separate county councils in 1888, but it remained a single ceremonial county until 1974 and the coming...
in 1869. However, he returned to Farringford to spend the winters.
In 1960, Dekyi Tseri, mother of the current Dalai Lama, stayed at the guest house of Sir Basil Gould
Basil Gould
Sir Basil John Gould, CMG, CIE was a British Political Officer in Sikkim, Bhutan and Tibet from 1935 to 1945.Gould was known by the nickname "B.J.", and went to school at Winchester College and Oxford University. He joined the Indian Civil Service in 1907.Gould was a British Trade Agent in...
's widow Cecily in Freshwater for six weeks. Tseri, known to Tibet
Tibet
Tibet is a plateau region in Asia, north-east of the Himalayas. It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people as well as some other ethnic groups such as Monpas, Qiang, and Lhobas, and is now also inhabited by considerable numbers of Han and Hui people...
ans as "Amala", meaning "The Great Mother", was recuperating after a throat operation to remove a benign polyp performed at St. Mary's Hospital in London.
Freshwater was also the birthplace of Sir Vivian Ernest Fuchs FRS (11 February 1908 – 11 November 1999). An English explorer whose expeditionary team completed the first overland crossing of Antarctica in 1958.
Organisations
The Freshwater Village Association was created in November 2006. The Freshwater Village Association was formed by Freshwater residents who are concerned that Freshwater might lose its identity as a village. The Freshwater Bay Residents Association was created July 2, 1984, with the goal of expressing concern about the development of Freshwater Bay.Freshwater Lifeboat is an independent lifesaving organisation based in Freshwater Bay. It operates the Freshwater Bay Lifeboat Station on the promenade along Freshwater Bay and two lifeboats from public donations and profits from shop sales, since it is not part of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution
Royal National Lifeboat Institution
The Royal National Lifeboat Institution is a charity that saves lives at sea around the coasts of Great Britain, Ireland, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man, as well as on selected inland waterways....
.
Freshwater is the home of Island Samba
Samba
Samba is a Brazilian dance and musical genre originating in Bahia and with its roots in Brazil and Africa via the West African slave trade and African religious traditions. It is recognized around the world as a symbol of Brazil and the Brazilian Carnival...
band "FAT Samba". It hosts the Freshwater and Totland
Totland
Totland is a village and civil parish at the western tip of the Isle of Wight. It lies on the coast at Colwell Bay, which is the closest part of the island to the British mainland...
Carnival every year.
History
There is evidence of a RomanRoman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
harbour at the end of the Western Yar
Western Yar
The River Yar on the Isle of Wight, England, rises near the beach at Freshwater Bay, on the south coast of the island and flows only a few miles north to Yarmouth, on the north coast, where it meets the Solent. Most of the river is a tidal estuary...
. In 530 CE, the Island fell to a combined force of Saxons
Saxons
The Saxons were a confederation of Germanic tribes originating on the North German plain. The Saxons earliest known area of settlement is Northern Albingia, an area approximately that of modern Holstein...
and Jutes
Jutes
The Jutes, Iuti, or Iutæ were a Germanic people who, according to Bede, were one of the three most powerful Germanic peoples of their time, the other two being the Saxons and the Angles...
. After the Norman Conquest, Lord of the island William Fitz Osbern
William Fitzosbern, 1st Earl of Hereford
William FitzOsbern , Lord of Breteuil, in Normandy, was a relative and close counsellor of William the Conqueror and one of the great magnates of early Norman England...
gave the Saxon All Saints Church and its tithes to the Norman Abbey of Lyre sometime between 1066 and his death in 1071. In 1414 all alien priories were seized by the Crown. In 1623, when King James I
James I of England
James VI and I was King of Scots as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the English and Scottish crowns on 24 March 1603...
gave Freshwater Parish to John Williams, Bishop of Lincoln. Williams then granted Freshwater to St. John's College, Cambridge on March 24, 1623.
The Freshwater Parish originally was composed of five farms, known as "tuns"; Norton, Sutton, Easton, Weston and Middleton. All of these place names still exist, except for Sutton, which is now called Freshwater Bay (previously Freshwater Gate). The first meeting of the Freshwater Parish Council was December 31, 1894.
Village attractions
There are several attractions within the immediate area:- Farringford HouseFarringford HouseFarringford House is a large manor house, with beautiful gardens, a large front garden where helicopters land, a restaurant called the 'Bistro' which has regular livebands and a previous Masterchef programme winner as a chef, outside swimming pool, tennis courts, holiday homes and a 9 hole golf...
, home of poet Alfred Lord Tennyson. - Dimbola LodgeDimbola LodgeDimbola Lodge was the Isle of Wight home of the Victorian pioneer photographer Julia Margaret Cameron from 1860 to 1875.It is now the home of the Julia Margaret Cameron Trust, and a photographic museum.-History of the property:...
, home of photographer Julia Margaret CameronJulia Margaret CameronJulia Margaret Cameron was a British photographer. She became known for her portraits of celebrities of the time, and for photographs with Arthurian and other legendary themes....
. - West Wight Sports CentreWest Wight Sports CentreWest Wight Sports Centre is a private/charity run sport and leisure complex in Freshwater on the Isle of Wight. It hosts numerous events as well as its ordinary functions, such events include the SNAP Nights as well as the West Wight Triathlon. It employs more than 50 full and part time staff...
. - Freshwater Bay Golf Course.
- Afton DownAfton DownAfton Down is a hill near the village of Freshwater on the Isle of Wight.It was the site of the Isle of Wight Festival 1970, where the Guinness Book of Records estimates 600,000 to 700,000, and possibly 800,000 people, flocked to see the musical talents of Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Free, The Who,...
, the site of the Isle of Wight Festival 1970Isle of Wight Festival 1970The 1970 Isle of Wight Festival was held between 26 and 31 August 1970 at East Afton Farm an area on the western side of the Isle of Wight. It was the last of three consecutive music festivals to take place on the island between 1968 and 1970 and widely acknowledged as the largest musical event of...
. - The NeedlesThe NeedlesThe Needles is a row of three distinctive stacks of chalk that rise out of the sea off the western extremity of the Isle of Wight, England, close to Alum Bay. The Needles lighthouse stands at the end of the formation...
Old Battery, a VictorianVictorian eraThe Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...
fort and post-Second World War rocket testing site. - The Needles Lighthouse and chalk rocks.
- Compton BayCompton BayCompton Bay is a bay located on the southwest section of the Isle of Wight, England. The northern edge of the bay is defined by a distinctive white chalk cliff called Freshwater Cliff, named after Freshwater Bay which is located next to them and forms a small but piercing bay into them...
, where dinosaurDinosaurDinosaurs are a diverse group of animals of the clade and superorder Dinosauria. They were the dominant terrestrial vertebrates for over 160 million years, from the late Triassic period until the end of the Cretaceous , when the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event led to the extinction of...
footprints are visible at low tideTideTides are the rise and fall of sea levels caused by the combined effects of the gravitational forces exerted by the moon and the sun and the rotation of the Earth....
. - The LongstoneThe Longstone, MottistoneThe Longstone is near the hamlet of Mottistone, close to the south west coast of the Isle of Wight. It is the only Megalithic monument on the Island.-Description and location:...
, some four miles distant, the only megalithic monument on the Island.
Not all of these attractions are within the formal boundaries of the village.
Transport
Freshwater is linked to other parts of the Island by Southern VectisSouthern Vectis
The Southern Vectis Omnibus Company Limited is the dominant bus operator on the Isle of Wight. It was purchased by the Go-Ahead Group in 2005 and is a part of the company's Go South Coast division. The firm employs 299 staff, with 105 single deck, double deck and open-top buses and coaches...
buses on route 7
Southern Vectis route 7
Southern Vectis route 7 is a bus service operated by Southern Vectis between Newport and Alum Bay via Yarmouth, Freshwater and Totland. The general daytime frequency of the route is every hour each direction. There has been significant local concern over the withdrawal of route 7 from some villages...
and route 12
Southern Vectis route 12
Southern Vectis route 12 is a bus service operated by Southern Vectis between Newport and Totland via Shorwell, Brighstone and Freshwater.- West Wight Route :...
serving Totland
Totland
Totland is a village and civil parish at the western tip of the Isle of Wight. It lies on the coast at Colwell Bay, which is the closest part of the island to the British mainland...
, Yarmouth
Yarmouth, Isle of Wight
Yarmouth is a port and civil parish in the western part of the Isle of Wight, off the southern coast of mainland England. The town is named for its location at the mouth of the small Western Yar river...
and Newport
Newport
Newport is a city and unitary authority area in Wales. Standing on the banks of the River Usk, it is located about east of Cardiff and is the largest urban area within the historic county boundaries of Monmouthshire and the preserved county of Gwent...
as well as intermediate villages. In the Summer, open top bus "The Needles Tour
Island Breezers
Island Breezers is the brand name given to the open top bus services run by Southern Vectis, which is the main bus operator on the Isle of Wight....
" and tourist service "Island Coaster" serve Freshwater Bay. Freshwater is on the Isle of Wight Coastal Path
Isle of Wight Coastal Path
.There are a couple of cafes on the cliff path which I believe are open in the summer months. The only public convenience on the cliff path now appears to be closed permanently ....
.