Isle of Wight: index

In parallel with the Devon history subject list, here's another for the currently some 140 Isle of Wight posts on JSBlog. Like the Devon posts, they're a mix of walk photos, galleries from out-of-print travelogues, looks at at old novels, and a good number of detailed explorations of Isle of Wight historical and topographical subjects.

2015

• The Reades' ministry: Blackgang and Punrooty - a story of missionary activity, in the Isle of Wight and colonial India.
• Ouida: The Little Earl, Bimbi, and an elegy for Shanklin - an Ouida children's story set around Shanklin, Bonchurch and the Undercliff.
• Mrs Harcourt Roe - novelist active in the late 1800s to early 1900s, who lived in Ryde in the 1890s.
  
• The Sacrifice of Enid: a Dartmoor melodrama - introducing "Mrs Harcourt Roe", an obscure author who lived in Ryde in the 1890s.
• Harriet Parr: bibliography, "Tuflongbo", and a dog's life  - more on the works of Shanklin-based author Harriet Parr (aka Holme Lee).
  
• Shanklin Home of Rest - a former Girls' Friendly Society institution at Lake, that provided affordable holiday and convalescent stays for working women.
•  Rambles Through England: Isle of Wight - annotated transcript of an 1894 review visit, from the Ludgate Monthly "threepenny illustrated magazine".
• The Isle of Wight: in a series of views printed in oil colours (1874) - gallery from  one of the better Victorian equivalents of the coffee-table book.
• Blackgang: Five Rocks - the remaining 1840s mansion at Blackgang, now the theme park 'haunted house'.
• Wilhelmina Stitch on Blackgang - verse on Blackgang Chine by a once-popular inspirational writer.
• Blackgang: a whale of a chine - the history of the famous whale skeleton at Blackgang Chine.
• Blackgang Chine, March 2015 - my revisit to the theme park, after around 50 years.
• Alum Bay - a visit to the classic scenic / geological attraction.
• Princess Elizabeth at Newport Minster - the rediscovery of a royal tomb in an interesting regional minster.
• Letts lineage: a clarification - history of the Letts diary-making dynasty, one of whose founders lived near Blackgang, Isle of Wight.
• "Oystericus" - history of a pub and a personality of Whippingham, on the River Medina.
• The A'Court Smiths of Gurnard: fossil insects and pedestrianism - an insect fossil collector and his family.
• The Great Sea Dragons and other weirdness - the apocalyptic / geological works of Thomas Hawkins, buried at Ventnor.
• John Lee's Nursery Ballads - Victoria & Albert ballads for children, one based on an anecdote set near Whippingham, IOW.
• An Isle of Wight New Year - the New Year celebrated via a quote from Maxwell Gray novel. 

2014

• Mount Misery - about a gloomy placename near Newport.
• The Dropping Rock - a forgotten spring on the downs near Newport.
• Albert Midlane's Vecta Garland - the anthology and life of Midlane, Newport ironmonger and poet.
• The timeline of Chad's Rock - the history of a lost landform, regularly in art, of the Undercliff near Niton.
• Isle of Wight: Heaton Cooper / Hope Moncrieff guide - gallery from a very pretty 1908 guidebook.
• Isle of Wight photo tours - Victorian-style - advice on photographing the Isle of Wight, from late-1800s photo magazines.
• The Kestyns of Cather Castle - a forgotten family saga by Robey Frank Eldridge, Newport solicitor and small-town politician.
• Carisbrooke Castle #1 - a photo visit on a bright November day.
• Annals of the Poor - the Rev Legh Richmond's classic 1814 compilation of tracts on worthy poverty in the Isle of Wight.
• The lucky escape of Kerenhappuch Newnham - the meme of "Happie Ninham", who fell off a cliff and lived.
• Shaw's Tourist's Picturesque Guide to the Isle of Wight - a gallery of plates from an 1873 guidebook.
• Southlands: Puseyites and Polynesian princesses -  the sad story of Hawaiian princesses brought to an Isle of Wight religious retreat.
• Lowcliffe and Southlands: from cradle to grave - history of two of the now-lost villas from the 1840s housing boom near Blackgang.
• Micah Morey's Cave - the lost quarry cave where a notorious Isle of Wight murderer hid.
• Milne-Shaw -  the story of two seismologists, with links to Birmingham, Japan, and Shide near Newport.
• Chine at dusk - a revisit to Shanklin Chine at lighting-up time.
• On the Medina - gallery of a river walk and ferry journey from Whippingham to Newport Quay.
• "I shot Prince Albert ..." - an anecdote of the childhood misdemeanour of Lord Ernle (Rowland Edmund Prothero).
• The Primrose Way - Maxwell Gray essay, starting from an evocative recollection of an Isle of Wight lane. 
• Rosa Raine's wanderings - reviewing the enthusiastic 1861 Isle of Wight travelogue The Queen's Isle.
• Ups and downs - the odd story of rising and shrinking hills on the southern Isle of Wight.
• Harriet Parr in Shanklin - the life and works of the self-effacing "Holme Lee".
•  The Chines They Are a-Changin' - exploring coastal changes on the 'Back of the Wight'  via old maps and historical descriptions.
• The Devil's Bridge, Steephill - a lost landmark of the Undercliff near Ventnor.
• A Tour to the Isle Wight, 1796 - gallery and review of Charles Tomkins' travelogue.
• A Tour of the Isle of Wight, 1790 - gallery and review of John Hassell's travelogue.
• Alma Lee found - a correspondent identifies the real-world prototype for the wronged young woman central to Maxwell Gray's The Silence of Dean Maitland.
• Spindler's list - the interesting career of the German industrialist and political activist William Spindler, who tried to develop St Lawrence as a town.
  Almost Fairyland - the hard-to-find 1914 book on Wight topics by John Morgan Richards, the American ex-pat businessman who retired to Steephill, near Ventnor.
• A Wren-like Note: IWCP piece - the Isle of Wight County Press feature on my Maxwell Gray biography.
• Sandrock Spring: quaffing the lymph - strange verse testimonials for the by all accounts disgusting waters of the former Sandrock Spring, near Niton.
• The Eyes! The Eyes! and other ads - strange advertisements from the Isle of Wight Observer, April 5th 1879.
• Newport: research visit and Little London - a look around Newport Quay, and the finding of an interesting print of early Bonchurch villa development.
• Chalybeate - a stream of rusty water marks a lost Shanklin spa.
• Gribble, gribble, the pier was a mess - a brief visit to Yarmouth.
• ... and the mysterious "Monopole" - the pseudonymous Shanklin writer, author of spa guides and a melodramatic romance.
• Shanklin Spa ... - the guidebook to the now-gone Shanklin Spa Hotel.
• The Sandrock Chalybeate Spring - the story of astute marketing of waters arising in the Undercliff between Niton and Blackgang.
• Pigot's Coloured Views - gallery of the lovely plates from the 1837 illustrated guidebook.
• Wonders of the Isle of Wight: growth of a meme - then and now: the development of the "Wonders of the Isle of Wight" list.

2013

• A Wren-like Note: officially launched - launch announcement for my Maxwell Gray biography.
• Nooks and crannies - an ill-fated housing boom - the 1840s villa boom at Blackgang, on cliffland already known to be unstable.
• Dean Maitland locations - a gallery of plates showing identifiable Wight and other locations, from the 897 Kegan Paul, Trench & Trübner illustrated edition of The Silence of Dean Maitland.
• More Wight literary miscellany - annotating works and author references in the 1948 Ward Lock Guide.
• The art of Shanklin Chine - poetry, art, photography - and an Elvis memorial.
• Crossing to Cowes - a trip on the chain ferry between East and West Cowes.
• At Osborne House - an autumn visit to the classic Victoria and Albert home.
• Undermount - a fascinating visit, by kind permission of the owners, to a hidden Bonchurch house and a hidden historical viewpoint.
• Tennyson Trail - the beautiful walk from Calbourne along the downs trail to Carisbrooke.
• The Devil's Chimney and The Chink - visiting two classic Undercliff rock staircases.
• Calbourne - WH Long - a look at Calbourne and its connectionto the 19th century writer.
• More Haslehust plates: IOW -  a gallery of pleasant EW Haslehust plates from the early 20th century Our Beautiful Homeland series.
• The Isle of Wight - James Redding Ware - gallery of excellent photos by Russell Sedgefield and Frank Mason Good, from from Ware's 1871 guide.
• Standing room only - the Isle of Wight population meme, and its relation to a 1907 fantasy novel.
• To see Swainston - a walk near Swainston Manor and the Temple, Calbourne (Dean Maitland locations) and back to Carisbrooke.
• ... in the Isle of Wight #2 - two travelogues, the 1901 French-authored Days in the Isle of Wight and the 1905 A Driving Tour in the Isle of Wight, the latter with a nice set of colour plates.
• ... in the Isle of Wight #1 - various books including Gwilliam's 1844 Rambles in the Isle of Wight and the 1846 Owen Gladdon's wanderings in the Isle of Wight.
• Poets of the Wight - Charles John Arnell's 1933 collection, offering a nepotistic selection of IOW writers and some very ripped-off illustrations.
• The "Salt Pot" - an unfinished lighthouse on St Catherine's Down, near Niton.
• Edward Edwards - troubled library pioneer - the train-wreck life of a pioneering librarian, who died in poverty in Niton.

2012

• The Silence of Dean Maitland: Volume 3 - concluding the reading.
• The Silence of Dean Maitland: Volume 2 - continuing the reading.
• The Silence of Dean Maitland: Volume 1 - beginning the reading of Maxwell Gray's classic Isle of Wight melodrama.
• Alexander Herzen in Ventnor -  a Russian writer's visit in the mid-1850s, with sketches by one of his entourage.
• Sweet Water Grapes - a 1921 Maxwell Gray story with allusions to Isle of Wight experiments in viniculture.
• A New Englander hates on the Sandrock - John Neal's 1830 metafictional novel Authorship: A Tale incorporates Isle of Wight locations.
• Isle of Wight postcards - three nice scenic postcards I bought at Sidmouth; and a little-known Undercliff path above Steephill.
• Brannon on Bonchurch - the Isle of Wight populariser George Brannon's outrage at the 1830s residential development of Bonchurch.
• Bonchurch: and a singer asleep - visiting Swinburne's grave.
• Down The Chimney into Bonchurch - descending the rock staircase from upper Bonchurch.
• Southview goes west - concerning Southview, one of the now-gone Undercliff villas of the 1840s Blackgang housing boom.
• The road more travelled ... - a walk from Niton to Blackgang via the Old Blackgang Road, Windy Corner, and Gore Cliff.
• The Landslip - Bonchurch to Shanklin - a walk through the smaller East End Undercliff.
• Pulpit Rock - a much-depicted historical feature of the Undercliff above Bonchurch.
• Balaam's and other narrow paths -  accounts of the several steep paths that descend through the crags to the Isle of Wight Undercliff.
• Steephill to Ventnor -  a brief summer visit to Ventnor.
• A summer morning in Carisbrooke - impressions, and connections, of a very early morning walk up the castle.
• Ventnor - good for lungs and plants - Ventnor Botanical Garden and historical connections.
• Sharland grave, Bonchurch Old Church - the story behind an unusual mountain-themed gravestone.
• Genesis of a Novel: Richard Nettell - Nettell describes the research background of his 1968 Isle of Wight historical novel Naked to Mine Enemy.
• Wight Writers (1957) - Books and Bookmen gives a glimpse into the genteel world of Isle of Wight writers in the mid-1950s
• Stories descriptive of the Isle of Wight - American author Emma MacAllan's 1859 tales of religiously instructive excursions around the southern Isle of Wight.
• William Adams: The Old Man's Home - Adams' religious tale, set around Bonchurch, is actually rather a good realisic psychological/investigative story.
• "Ursula" and Blackgang - the novelist and educator Elizabeth Missing Sewell.identifies Blackgang locations used in her 1858 novel; and I get a tattoo commemorating my return to the 'lost road'..

2011

• Isle of Wight for 10,000 years - a geologically implausible landscape prediction from a children's encyclopedia.
• Richard Rosny - and an apocryphal rhyme -  the Niton Undercliff appears in a Maxwell Gray novel; and in a fake legend.
• On going back - reflections on my rediscovery of the Isle of Wight following being reunited with my father.
• Over Culver to Shanklin - photos from a pleasant walk from Whitecliff Bay to Shanklin.
• On the lost road -  photos from my long-planned visit to the 'lost road' segment of the old Niton-Blackgang road now isolated inside the landslip below Gore Cliff.
• George Morland at Freshwater - the rather unfortunate life at Freshwater of this 1700s painter of painter of animals and rustic scenes.
• Donald McGill Museum -  a visit to the Ryde museum (now moved across the street) for this painter of saucy postcards.
• Richard Rosny - reading the 1903 Maxwell Gray novel, set in a fictionalised southern Wight.
• Letts: a relic - looking at the 'Shakespeare Fountain' and its diary magnate creator.
• IOW (3): Return to Blackgang - we take a quick look at the vicinity of Blackgang Chine and Gore Cliff.
• IOW (2): Llamas and chines -  a short 'Back of the Wight' walk meets llamas and takes in various chines.
• IOW (1): Oddfellows - a little about the Vecta Lodge of the Newport branch of the Oddfellows Friendly Society.
• The House of Hidden Treasure - reading the 1898 Maxwell Gray novel, a rather bleak family saga set in "Barling", a fictionalised Brading.

2010

• Ribstone Pippins - reading the 1898 Maxwell Gray novel, a dialect romance about a young Isle of Wight carter.
• The Broken Tryst - reading the 1879 Maxwell Gray novel, a melodramatic romance set largely in "Brightdale", a fictionalised Brighstone.
• Swinburne, Culver climber - on the poet Algernon Swinburne's completely uncorroborated story of having climbed Culver Cliff at the now-lost 'Hermit's Hole'.
• Old Park - and a stormy friendship - the one-way romance of artist Walter Spindler and the novelist Pearl Craigie (who wrote as John Oliver Hobbes).
• Isle of Wight flying visit (3) - brief commentary on the Undercliff near Ventnor.
• Isle of Wight flying visit (1) - during which I see the original manuscript of Maxwell Gray's The Silence of Dean Maitland.
• The Last Sentence - reading the 1893 Maxwell Gray novel, a melodramatic saga with some probable Wight locations.
• The Reproach of Annesley - reading the 1889 Maxwell Gray novel, of which a major setting is "Arden", a fictionalised Arreton.
• Maxwell Gray: Unconfessed - reading the 1911 Maxwell Gray novel set largely around "Brookwell", which seems to be a portmanteau of Shorwell and Brighstone.

2009

• The writer, the cancer-merchant, his eccentric wife, and the faux castle - family drama at Steephill Castle with author Pearl Craigie and her American entrepreneur father John Morgan Richards.
• The Silence of Dean Maitland - an introductory pointer to Maxwell Gray's classic 1886 melodramatic novel.

2008

• The disappearing chine - a short introduction to the topic of Blackgang Chine, and its disappearance due to two centuries of coastal erosion.

These and future Isle of Wight topics at JSBlog can be collectively accessed via the label iow.

- Ray