Town, Suburban, Village and Coastal Gardens.
The evidence for medieval town gardens are discussed on the Medieval Gardens tab.
This section deals mainly with C19 gardens but commences by reviewing the evidence for urban gardens of the early post-medieval period.
Nationally, the number and ambition of urban gardens increased in the post-medieval period, particularly in the C18. Such gardens normally lay behind the house and were long, narrow and typically defined by tall walls. By the mid C17 there were towns on the Isle of Wight at Newport, Yarmouth, Newtown, Brading and Cowes.
The first four towns were of medieval origin but Cowes grew up as a trading port in the C17 and developed a ship-building industry from the C18. Isle of Wight towns were of modest size compared to mainland towns. However, examples of town houses (mainly C18) occupied by merchants and wealthy residents survive and some have walled gardens.
Examples of garden features at Yarmouth include a C17 garden wall in Bridge Road (LB II), a late C18 walled garden at ‘The Deacons’ in the High Street (LB II) and an early C19 gazebo in the garden of ‘The Towers’, also in the High Street (LB II).
A garden wall in Newport at the rear of 78, 79 and 80 High Street is C17 in date and is associated with the gabled end of a garden outbuilding (LB II).
Ivy House in Cowes (LB II*) is one of the town’s best C18 houses and has a brickwalled garden abutting Sun Hill. Nearby Claremont House (LB II) in Market Hill is of similar date and also has a brick-walled garden.
In addition to these examples of town gardens and garden features in Yarmouth, Newport and Cowes there are at least 30 listed building entries for properties in other Island towns and villages which refer to garden walls or garden features.
The Isle of Wight Gardens Trust has not yet systematically recorded gardens or garden features within the Island’s older towns of Newport, Yarmouth, Brading and Cowes. Fieldwork might locate additional features to those recorded above.
New towns were established on the Isle of Wight in the late C18 and in the C19 as sea bathing and seaside holidays became popular. In some respects, Ryde may be considered to be the earliest ‘coastal resort’ on the Island, starting from its development in the late C18, but sea bathing also took place at Cowes during this period.
The birth of Ryde as a town commenced when William Player, the lord of the manor, linked two small communities with a gridiron pattern of streets, starting in about 1790. In the early days of its development access to the town from the sea was inconvenient, since passengers from the mainland had to be landed by wherries onto the open beach and transferred to dry land by horse and cart. Following the building of the first pier in 1814 and the commencement of regular steam ferries from Portsmouth in 1825 access to Ryde was much easier. In the late C18 and early C19 there was an emphasis on the health-giving properties of seaside holidays. Such holidays were initially the preserve of the well-to-do. However, the Island started to become more accessible quite early in the C19 as a result of regular ferry services although no railways were built on the Island until the 1860s.
Ventnor developed as a town from the 1830s after Sir James Clark (later a doctor to Queen Victoria) described the town as the perfect convalescent retreat. Located within the Undercliff, it had an exceptionally mild climate which attracted visitors throughout the year and became more accessible as steam packets took some of the anxiety out of sea travel. By the late C19, seaside holidays had become a possibility for a wider spectrum of British society than had previously been the case.
Sandown and Shanklin had started to develop as urban coastal resorts by the early 1860s (although many of the cottages ornés in Shanklin ‘Old Village’ dated from the early C19) but both resorts expanded greatly in the late C19.
Coastal villages as well as seaside towns expanded on the Island in the C19, for instance at Bembridge and Niton, or were created where no settlements had previously existed, for instance at Seaview, Gurnard and Totland. C19 gardens within the Island’s seaside towns and villages as well as inland country house gardens benefitted from the introduction of new species in common with other parts of Britain.
However, despite its generally mild climate, the Island can suffer from extreme and rapid weather changes. These climatic factors, together with long summer droughts, lack of shelter and a lack of arid soils (except for the Upper Greensand strip adjacent to the main Chalk ridge) may have proved a deterrent to the creation of Victorian plantsmen’s gardens on the Island similar to those common in the West Country.
Furthermore, C19 gardens were situated to maximise sea views and so did not provide the shelter required to develop plantsmen’s gardens in an area of such climatic extremes as the Island. Nevertheless, the generally mild winters did encourage the development of the smaller seaside villa gardens experimenting in formal Victorian sub-tropical bedding schemes featuring species such as Coryline australis and Trachycarpus fortunei (the Chusan palm), especially in the Ryde and Undercliff areas.
Historically and at the present day, strong north-westerly and south-westerly winds have prevented trees from reaching the same stature as in most parts of England.
Native trees have been the main feature inside most gardens except at Osborne, where many North American Victorian introductions were planted in the mid C19. However, C19 shelter belts around the edge of gardens included non-native species such as holm oak, laurels, cherry laurels and bays, still commonly seen on the Island, whilst Monterey Cypress became more popular in the early C20.
Substantial town-edge villas were characteristic of the late C18 and early C19.
On the Island, these town-edge villas were often associated with coastal resorts. Some of the earliest examples of suburban villa gardens on the Island were established at Ryde.
Many of the designed landscapes in the Ryde area were essentially park-like pleasure grounds with sea views and were associated with cottages ornés or marine villas. In the early days of its development, during the late C18 and early C19, Ryde differed from many inland mainland towns in that the owners of its suburban villas were generally not middle-class patrons but were often wealthy landowners seeking a second home by the sea and the health-giving properties of sea air and sea bathing.
However, later in the C19 seaside holidays in Ryde became accessible to middle class families, particularly after travel from the mainland became easier. From the mid C19 smaller villas were built for seasonal rental or as speculative developments designed to be let out as rooms or apartments.
A number of the finest villas in Ryde still stand, including the early C19 properties of Westmont (LB II), now part of Ryde School, Buckingham Villa (LB II) and Earl Spencer’s Marine Villa (later Westfield House) as well as the slightly later Marine Villa of c.1840 (LB II), now the Seaford Hotel. The six inch Ordnance Survey map of 1862 shows that these villas had spacious pleasure grounds.
Today, pleasure grounds with lawns and mature trees survive at Ryde to the north of Marine Villa and of Buckingham Villa, although some housing development has taken place in the grounds of the latter property which is now in divided ownership. The grounds of Westmont are now school playing fields and the grounds of Westfield and of Wellington Lodge have been developed for housing.
Pelhamfield lay on the western outskirts of Ryde and was developed c.1820-1860 with detached houses which had much smaller gardens than the earlier and grander houses closer to the town centre. The gardens in the Pelham Fields area seem to have remained largely undeveloped to the present day but it is not known how far they retain elements of their C19 character. Outlying properties along the coastline to the west and east of Ryde had larger areas of parkland Ryde House (LB II) to the west of the town was built for the Player family in 1810. The six inch Ordnance Survey map of 1862 shows that the house was set in parkland with a tree-lined avenue leading from a lodge beside Binstead Road to the house and another avenue (later known as Ladies Walk) defining the south-west edge of the park. Today much of the parkland area survives within Ryde Golf Course.
On the eastern side of Ryde was Appley House, lying close to the Solent shore, where a house and gardens are shown on John Andrews’ map of 1769. By the 1790s a small park was located to the south of the house and its pleasure grounds. Appley House (LL) is now the home of St Cecelia’s Abbey and open parkland still survives to the south of the house (LL).
To the east of Appley House lay the early C19 properties of St Clare and Puckpool, also close to the Solent shore. An irregular castellated mansion was built at St Clare in 1823 and a substantial cottage orné at Puckpool in 1822-4. Parkland was laid out around both properties. Puckpool was acquired by the War Department in 1861 and Puckpool Battery was built on part of the site. Today most of the former parkland of St Clare and Puckpool lies within the curtilage of the disused Harcourt Sands Holiday Centre but Puckpool House (LB II) survives and the site of the former Puckpool Battery is now a public park.
In the early C19 the large and significant St John’s estate (including parkland and pleasure grounds laid out Humphfry Repton) occupied land on the outskirts of Ryde to the south and east of Appley House. In the mid C19 this estate was split up. St John’s Park and Apley Tower (later Appley Towers) were developed on land that had formerly been part of the estate. St John’s House retained the pleasure grounds around the principal building. In 1871 John Peter Gassiot purchased St John’s House and engaged W B Page, the Southampton landscape gardener, to remodel the pleasure grounds. W B Page had previously worked at Steephill Castle in the 1830s and also carried out work at Whippingham Rectory.
Page’s landscaping at St John’s included a shrubbery walk which circumnavigated the grounds, a brick arched entrance way leading to the house via a stone lined hollow way, rock gardens, a water garden and a new eye catcher in the shape of a gothic folly in the woodland band to the north of the grounds visible from the terrace on the north side of the house.
St John’s House (LB II) and its grounds (LL) are now occupied by Oakfield Primary School. Elements of Page’s landscaping survive in the school grounds including the shrubbery walk and gothic folly.
St John’s Park (LL), on land taken formerly within the St John’s estate, was designed by local architect Thomas Hellyer. It was planned as an integral part of an up-market housing development, creating a communal park for the private use of the substantial villas surrounding it.
The Ordnance Survey map of 1863 shows St John’s Park as a tear-drop shaped area surrounded by houses in their own private grounds. Within the park a series of serpentine paths are shown, with a more direct route leading to a central formal circular feature (a summer house or bandstand) having a circular path around it. Groups of trees are shown within the open parkland to the south of the central summerhouse.
The area of St John’s Park survives to the present day although it is now dominated by secondary woodland. Former gardens (parterres), gravelled paths and lawned areas have been lost and only the brick base of the summer house/bandstand remains. Other surviving features are the remains of stone posts and gateposts (at the main entrance and smaller entrance on East Hill Road) and also the remains of iron railings around the perimeter of the park behind the villas. The property of Apley Tower (later Appley Towers) was developed on the eastern part of the former St John’s estate.
Apley Tower possessed formal gardens and parkland around the house and open woodland beside the Solent shore to the north. A folly, confusingly known as ‘Appley Tower’ (LB II), was built on the northern edge of the parkland beside the shore in the 1870s.
The house at Apley Tower was demolished in the 1950s and much of the site was developed for housing but the public park of Appley now occupies the northern part of the site.
Parkland continued to be created on either side of Ryde in the Victorian period and villas with smaller pleasure grounds were built along the road leading from Binstead to Ryde (Brookfield Lodge, Brookfield and Stonepit).
Quarr House, lying to the west of Binstead, was built for Admiral Sir Thomas John Cochrane in 1858 and parkland was laid out around the house. The house is now part of the early C20 Quarr Abbey (LB I). The framework of the C19 designed landscape survives including farmed former parkland, approach drives and ornamental planting around the house and elsewhere.
Between Quarr Abbey and the village of Binstead lies Quarr Wood which was part of the Fleming estate in the C19. The laying out of a new carriage road and the building of houses within the wood had commenced by 1861 in what a contemporary writer described as ‘the march of villa-building’.
Plots were marked out in the woodland within which ‘Quarrwood Lodge’, ’Wellwood’, ‘West View’, ‘Hazlemount’, ‘The Boulders’ and ‘Denmark House’ were built and a tree-lined ornamental drive was constructed, running northward from the carriage drive to the Solent. ‘Monksfield’ (later known as Binstead Hall) and ‘Macquarrie’ were built at a slightly later date and are shown for the first time on the 25 inch Ordnance Survey map of 1897-8.
Today the C19 properties in Quarr Wood still lie within well-wooded grounds although part of the wood was more intensively developed with houses in the late C20.
The estate of Woodlands Vale is a C19 creation on the east side of Ryde, located a little way inland from the coast to the south of Puckpool.
The principal building (LB II*), originally known as Woodlands, was built in 1829 and rebuilt in the 1850s or 1860s. It was then enlarged in 1870-71 to the designs of the distinguished architect Samuel Saunders Teulon for Colonel (later Baron) Calthorpe. Teulon also designed rose arches and a summer house within the garden.
The development of the grounds at Woodlands Vale can be traced on a series of Ordnance Survey maps and estate plans from 1830 to 1939. During this time the area of the pleasure grounds, parkland and woodland shelter belts expanded considerably to their maximum extent of about 73 acres. Fashionable Japanese features were added to the garden in the early C20.
The formal garden at Woodlands Vale lies to the north-east of the house and has a strongly architectural structure with a series of terraces leading the eye down to the formal cruciform-shaped pool at the bottom of the garden and beyond to views across the parkland to the Solent and Spitbank Fort.
Woodlands Vale is nationally significant as a well-preserved and representative example of a large formal Victorian/Edwardian garden (NHL II). It is of particular local importance since it is the only site on the Island within the category of Town, Suburban, Village and Coastal Gardens to be represented on the National Heritage List.
Springfield House (now Springfield Court) was a Victorian property built in 1832. It abutted the parkland of Woodlands Vale on its north-east side but had much smaller grounds than Woodlands Vale, with a total area of only seven acres.
The 25 inch Ordnance Survey map produced in the 1860s shows that the house was set back from the main entrance in Springvale Road (a coastal road running alongside the beach) and faced north east with sea views towards Spithead. It had pleasure grounds planted with conifers and deciduous trees and can be characterised as a Victorian woodland garden with ornamental drive and pool containing notable trees.
Springfield House was damaged by fire in 1983 and replaced by a modern neo Georgian apartment building in about 2002. This building now houses self catering holiday apartments but the pleasure grounds remain largely undeveloped with mature trees surviving, particularly around the perimeter of the site.
Cowes was popular for sea bathing in the late C18 and in the C19 became associated with yachting. In terms of designed landscapes, the town was dominated by the 216 acre Northwood Park from the early C19.
Its suburban villas did not generally possess the relatively extensive pleasure grounds that existed in Ryde although Egypt House and Grove House (close to the sea shore) and Westhill House (overlooking the harbour) were exceptions to this rule.
The coastline from Cowes Castle to Egypt Point began to be developed from the early C19. This development intensified in the later C19 after Cowes Castle (LB II*) became the home of the Royal Yacht Squadron in 1858 and its annual yachting regatta became patronised by royalty. Princes Green became a public open space on the seafront and by the end of the C19 development extended to the west of Egypt Point. There was some additional building in the early C20 but properties built on the coastal slope at the eastern end of this area still enjoyed wooded grounds.
Egypt House (LB II) is of C18 origin and a sea-bathing establishment was run from this property in the 1760s. The distinctive red-brick Tudor-style crenellated house dates mainly from the C19 and is set in fairly open grounds on the seaward side with a walled garden to the south-east of the house.
Other properties on Cowes seafront are agreeably varied, as are their grounds. These include the small gardens of elegant early C19 villas on Queen’s Road, the wooded grounds of Stanhope Lodge, the simple coastal-edge lawn of tiny Rosetta Cottage and at least two gardens that still retain seaside shelters from which yacht races were viewed. Individual gardens along the seafront at West Cowes are not necessarily of significance in themselves but contribute to the overall landscape character of the area.
Redevelopment of some properties and their grounds along the seafront has diluted this character to some extent. Cowes Conservation Area includes the Queen’s Road as a discrete character area but a more detailed Conservation Area Assessment could assist in the conservation of this area.
East Cowes was also a fashionable location for the smaller estates of wealthy incomers to the Island. Villa development in East Cowes in the mid C19 was stimulated by the presence of nearby Osborne.
An estate at East Cowes purchased by William Goodrich in 1784 was named Springhill in 1812. The notebooks of George Repton (assistant to John Nash) include drawings of a dwelling for Mr Goodrich which may have been built although the present house dates from the 1860s. Parkland is shown at Springhill on Greenwood’s 1826 map. The former parkland at Springhill (LL) survives as pasture and there are important views into this area from West Cowes on the other side of the River Medina.
The grounds of Elm Cottage (a typical cottage orné), Millfield, St Thomas, Slatwoods and the Lodge, all on the outskirts of East Cowes, were illustrated, described or mapped in early editions of George Brannon’s Vectis Scenery from 1820. These grounds were smaller than those of Springhill. A caravan park now occupies the grounds of St Thomas and only scant remains of garden walls survive at Slatwoods and the Lodge (where the houses no longer survive). Millfield House survives without its grounds and Elm Cottage and its grounds have been lost.
York Avenue, Victoria Grove and Adelaide Grove originally formed part of a planned East Cowes Park Estate and were laid out along the sides of a projected botanic garden. The garden was never completed and has been built over. Only a handful of the houses on the estate remain, including Kent House (LL) - once the home of Earl Mountbatten’s parents -and Osborne Cottage (LB II), sometime residence of Princess Beatrice, the youngest daughter of Queen Victoria. A listed greenhouse, covered way and summerhouse survive at Osborne Cottage.
The property of Padmore (LB II), located at Whippingham about 1 km south of Osborne, was the home of the Revd. James Joliffe, Chaplain to Queen Victoria, from 1841 to 1914. The Revd Joliffe may have created the small area of parkland at Padmore, traces of which still remain. There are also C20 garden features at Padmore.
Ventnor, located within the Undercliff, began to be developed in the 1830s but reached its heyday of popularity in the later Victorian and Edwardian eras.
The town itself was tightly packed with houses. However, nearby Bonchurch to the east of Ventnor - a community of three farms and a tiny church until the early C19 - offered a picturesque environment which attracted writers and artists. In fact Bonchurch rivalled the Ryde area in the development of C19 gardens. The broken irregular nature of the Undercliff gave an air of seclusion and rurality to the grounds of the large villas at Bonchurch and these grounds fully exploited the rugged aspects of the landscape. Examples of this use of existing landforms include the rock tunnel through which Undermount was approached and the natural viewing platform at Pulpit Rock. Even Bonchurch Pond became a design feature within the landscape.
East Dene was built on the site of Bonchurch Farm in about 1826 and is one of the early Undercliff Tudor-Gothic houses. It was the childhood home of Algernon Swinburne who later became a noted Victorian poet.
The house at East Dene was approached by a sunken winding carriage drive flanked by walls of rock and its garden was composed of terraces on different levels.
The grounds, although partially wooded, also afforded splendid glimpses of the English Channel to the south, as at many Bonchurch properties. o Today, the house (LB II*) and the framework of the designed landscape survives, as does an apsidal-ended walled garden in separate ownership.
Charles Dickens rented the property of Winterbourne at Bonchurch from July to October 1849. Winterbourne has operated as a guest house in recent years and retains large gardens.
Cliff Dene (a C19 Bonchurch property with wooded grounds formerly named Cliffend) was the home of the author H de Vere Stacpoole from the early 1930s until his death. He published a book of poems entitled In a Bonchurch Garden and presented Bonchurch Pond to the village in memory of his first wife.
Many more notable C19 Bonchurch gardens were described and illustrated in contemporary accounts. The Isle of Wight Gardens Trust has not yet carried out a systematic survey of Bonchurch gardens so it is unclear how far the design of these gardens has survived although some have remained undeveloped.
Shanklin ‘Old Village’ was first developed from a cluster of pre-existing farmsteads and cottages in the early C19.
Fashionable cottages ornés were built, generally with very small gardens although Eastcliff (LB II), Chine House (LB II) and Tower Cottage had somewhat larger pleasure grounds.
The expansion of Shanklin into a larger tourist resort in the later C19 resulted in fairly high density development close to the town centre with only a few seaside properties of this date, such as Rylstone House (LB II) in the Old Village, being set in larger grounds. The grounds of Rylstone House and Tower Cottage became public gardens in the C20.
Shanklin Manor, on a medieval site, lay to the south of Shanklin Chine adjacent to the parish church. By 1769 it had an enclosed garden. The house was rebuilt in the late C19 but the grounds were not substantially altered.
Landguard Manor (LB II) on the northern edge of Shanklin was another oldestablished estate. A small park, ornamental woodlands and orchards are shown on the 1793-4 Ordnance Survey drawing but the grounds were expanded and remodelled in the late C19 during the ownership of Colonel Atherley. The framework of the late C19 design still survives.
There was no residential development close to the seafront at Sandown until the mid C19 and the resort largely developed in the second half of the C19.
Development was generally of fairly high density, as at Shanklin, and few ornamental grounds are shown along the seafront on the 1897-8 25 inch Ordnance Survey maps except for those of Fern Cliff (now a public garden).
Los Altos was built on the outskirts of Sandown in the 1870s as a seaside residence for George Drabble.
A firm of landscape gardeners was employed to lay out the grounds at Los Altos which included a small parkland paddock and a tree-lined drive leading towards Sandown Station.
A sunken rose garden to the north of the house is of early C20 date.
The principal building at Los Altos is now a hotel and its grounds include the rose garden. The parkland paddock has become a public park.
Smaller Island settlements which saw the development of high-class coastal residences during the C19 included Seaview, Bembridge and Niton.
The seaside village and small resort of Seaview, located to the east of Ryde, grew up after 1800 on an unsettled piece of the coast where previously there had been only a saltern and a fort. In the C19 Seaview became a popular coastal resort for the upper and middle classes and yachting became a popular activity.
Properties at the centre of Seaview were small houses and cottages but there were more substantial houses with parklands and sea views to the west and south of the settlement.
The grounds of Seafield House (LB II) are shown on Clarke’s map of 1812 and those of Marine Villa, aka Seaview House on Greenwood’s map of 1826. Fairy Hill (LB II), slightly inland and to the southwest of Seaview, was of C18
origin and its parkland is shown on the 1793-4 Ordnance Survey drawing as is that of the nearby property of Seagrove with its coastal woodland.
Some areas of former parkland and ornamental woodland have survived around Seagrove and Fairy Hill on the outskirts of Seaview, contributing to its overall character.
The Bembridge area comprised a peninsula known as ‘Bembridge Isle’ located at the eastern extremity of the Isle of Wight and almost cut off from the rest of the Island by Brading Haven (drained c.1880) and the chalk downs.
By the early C19, Bembridge had started to become a seasonal retreat for the affluent classes in a similar fashion to East Cowes and Seaview. Links with sailing developed later in the century. C19 and early C20 development spread across the seaward end of the peninsula, expanding the existing irregular row settlement of Bembridge Street and infilling between pre-existing scattered farmsteads.
In the first half of the C19, residences with large pleasure grounds were built beyond Bembridge’s historic core. These properties lay close to the coast and the harbour to allow sea views. They included Bembridge Lodge (LB II), Hillgrove (attributed to the architect John Nash), East Cliff and Tyne Hall. Today, the grounds of these properties remain at least partially undeveloped. Bembridge Lodge and Tyne Hall retain elements of the original design.
The area of Bembridge to the north of the church has a strong landscaped character provided by a broad straight drive (Ducie Avenue) and Victorian planting. Much of this design character relates to work carried out by a local landowner, Colonel Moreton. He introduced regular polygonal land divisions east of his onetime residence at Hillgrove to carve out spacious plots for two storey residences, purportedly for his daughters. These residences include Ducie Cottage, Magnolia House and Balure.
Steyne House (LB II) was built in the early C19, slightly inland and away from the centre of Bembridge on the site of an existing farmstead. By 1866 it had a small pleasure ground around the house and a small area of parkland to the north (LL). The grounds continued to develop into the early C20.
The village of Niton is of medieval origin but Niton Undercliff, between the inner cliff and the coast, developed from the late C18 as the scenic beauty of the area became appreciated. Here, at the southernmost tip of the Island, is some of its wildest coastal scenery and Niton Undercliff contains a scatter of mainly C19 properties ‘placed where practical in the tumbled landscape’.
Some of the earliest properties at Niton Undercliff, such as Puckaster Cottage (LB II) and the Orchard (LB II), were noted cottages ornés or marine villas and the grounds of later properties also exploited the picturesque Undercliff location. Greenwood’s 1826 map depicts gentlemen’s residences with surrounding grounds at Knowle, Mount Cleve (LB II), Westcliff and Beauchamp. The six inch Ordnance Survey of 1862 shows a network of roads between St Catherine’s Lighthouse and Undercliff Drive linking properties with surrounding grounds including La Rosier, Windcliff, Thorncliff and Niton Lodge.
The Royal Sandrock Hotel and the Victoria Hotel are also marked on the 1862 map, emphasising that the area was popular with upper class visitors as well as with well-to-do residents. In the 1830s the future Queen Victoria had stayed with her mother at the Royal Sandrock Hotel (burnt down c. 1990), thus helping to establish the popularity of the area Rosiere Villa (which had the later names of La Rosier, Verlands, Puckwell House and the Undercliff Hotel) was built by 1835. It became known as Verlands in 1865 and at that time it had a winter garden on the south front and a small park on the other side of a public road, to which it was connected by a tunnel. The house was destroyed in World War II and the grounds have been redeveloped.
Windcliff, built c.1838 as a summer residence for the Kirkpatrick family, is now a hotel but still has 4 acres of wooded grounds.
Holiday chalets are now set in the grounds of Westcliff.
Mount Cleve, now Mount Cleves retains grounds of about 7 acres including mature woodland, with a series of terraces and paths leading to a cliff with caves, as well as to vantage points with views over the surrounding coastline. There is a folly in the form of a church turret (LB II).
St Helens, unlike other historic coastal settlements such as Bembridge and Niton, remained a largely agricultural settlement in the C19 with the only large villas being Castle House and St Helens House. Both had pleasure grounds although those of St Helen’s House were relatively modest in size.
Castle House (now ‘The Castle’ LB II) was built in 1842 and a late C19 sales catalogue states that ‘the grounds were laid out by a skilled landscape gardener in about the year 1866’.
The property was occupied by Sir Harry Baldwin, Dentist to Queen Victoria, from 1896. At this time the garden of 16 acres contained ‘fine oak, elm and other forest trees, flower gardens, tennis and other lawns, ornamental trees and shrubs, orchards and kitchen garden and a peach house’.
Today, the grounds of Castle House survive (LL), now divided between various owners but retaining original features shown on plans of 1899 and 1902.
The remaining area of garden now owned by ‘The Castle’ is typical of the late Victorian period. It is also one of the few relatively well-preserved examples from this period on the Island which means that it is locally significant.
Historically, Freshwater consisted of a number of scattered settlements rather than a single nucleated village. Perhaps because of its rural location, its relative isolation and its lack of a single settlement centre it did not become the focus for clusters of early C19 upper class residences in the same way as Bembridge, Seaview or Niton Undercliff.
However, the properties of Norton Lodge and Westhill - on the Solent shore opposite Yarmouth – were set in parkland by the early decades of the C19 and Farringford Hill has been built by 1802.
Farringford Hill was later known as Farringford. It became the home of the poet Alfred Lord Tennyson and his wife Emily in 1853. By this time an area of parkland had been created, softening the originally very unsheltered setting of the house.
The principal building at Farringford was much altered and extended between 1825 and 1833 but the Tennysons added an additional wing in 1871.
Many improvements to the grounds at Farringford were also made by the Tennysons including the creation of a sunken path along a diverted right of way, the construction of a footbridge across the sunken path and the planting of additional trees within existing shelterbelts.
The journal of Emily Tennyson has many references to gardening (including work in the walled kitchen garden) and to garden features such as the ‘sunk fence’ (ha-ha), the ‘wilderness’ and the summer house in Maiden’s Croft.
After World War II Farringford (LB I) became a hotel with part of the former parkland in use as a golf course. Self-catering holidays are now provided within the grounds.
The designed landscape at Farringford (LL) retains its C19 framework and individual features such as the walled kitchen garden, sunken path and footbridge (now rebuilt). It is of historical importance as the scene of well-documented gardening activities by the Tennyson family. It also provides an appropriate setting for the house, providing views out of the park mainly looking eastward to Afton Down and the coastline beyond as far as Blackgang Chine.
A conservation management plan has set out proposals for the designed landscape. The current restoration scheme includes work to be carried out within the walled kitchen garden.
Norton Lodge is now a holiday centre although the outline of its former parkland is still identifiable. The grounds at Westhill were redeveloped in the later C20. Development in the Freshwater area during the later C19 was influenced by its associations with the poet Alfred Lord Tennyson as well as by commercial considerations.
Partly as a result of the Tennyson connection, various properties in the Freshwater area were built or extended in the second half of the C19 including Dimbola (LB II), home of the photographer Julia Margaret Cameron. However, the only houses with substantial grounds were Freshwater Court (LL), built for Tennyson’s brother and The Briary, sometime home of the Victorian painter G.F.Watts . Wooded pleasure grounds survive at Freshwater Court. The Briary was was destroyed by fire and rebuilt but still retains its grounds.
Totland, at the western extremity of the Island was an area of farmland within Freshwater Parish in the mid C19. It was developed as a small seaside resort from 1870 (Isle of Wight Council 2012a). The growth of a village centre along the Broadway and the planned development of the Totland Bay Estate Company to the south can be traced on Ordnance Survey maps of 1896 and 1907.
The village centre at Totland was characterised by modest semi-detached villas with small gardens whilst the planned estate of Totland Bay contained large villas set within their own grounds (often wooded) in prime locations overlooking the sea.
Large villas within Totland Bay that have retained their grounds include Heatherwood (predating the planned development of the area), Hatherwood House, an imposing Edwardian residence positioned in a mature landscape garden (LL) and Bayfield , a house set within mature gardens with a prime view over the bay.
The Turf Walk, specifically created as a promenade along the cliff, also survives.
Gurnard, close to West Cowes, was another coastal village that was developed on the site of former farmland in the mid C19. Land was put up for sale as building plots with the possible aim of creating a park estate to attract retired service personnel as is indicated by the width of Worsley Road and Solent View Road. These roads are shown on the six inch Ordnance Survey of 1863 but development had only just started at this date.
Most of the development within Gurnard consisted of fairly modest villas or cottages with small gardens. However, two larger properties with landscaped grounds were built close to Gurnard during the C19. Woodvale Cottage (later known as Woodvale House) predated the development of the village, having been built in the 1820s or 1830s as the ‘marine residence’ of a Captain William Farington R.N and substantially altered in the 1840s. The 1863 map shows a pleasure garden and a small park attached to Woodvale House. Today, the house survives but the grounds have largely been developed.
The Dell, in Cockleton Lane, was built by Captain Thomas Hudson R.N. in about 1888. Landscaped grounds with much woodland planting had been developed by 1987. The Dell was demolished in the 1970s and the site is now Gurnard Pines Holiday Village.
The evidence for medieval town gardens are discussed on the Medieval Gardens tab.
This section deals mainly with C19 gardens but commences by reviewing the evidence for urban gardens of the early post-medieval period.
Nationally, the number and ambition of urban gardens increased in the post-medieval period, particularly in the C18. Such gardens normally lay behind the house and were long, narrow and typically defined by tall walls. By the mid C17 there were towns on the Isle of Wight at Newport, Yarmouth, Newtown, Brading and Cowes.
The first four towns were of medieval origin but Cowes grew up as a trading port in the C17 and developed a ship-building industry from the C18. Isle of Wight towns were of modest size compared to mainland towns. However, examples of town houses (mainly C18) occupied by merchants and wealthy residents survive and some have walled gardens.
Examples of garden features at Yarmouth include a C17 garden wall in Bridge Road (LB II), a late C18 walled garden at ‘The Deacons’ in the High Street (LB II) and an early C19 gazebo in the garden of ‘The Towers’, also in the High Street (LB II).
A garden wall in Newport at the rear of 78, 79 and 80 High Street is C17 in date and is associated with the gabled end of a garden outbuilding (LB II).
Ivy House in Cowes (LB II*) is one of the town’s best C18 houses and has a brickwalled garden abutting Sun Hill. Nearby Claremont House (LB II) in Market Hill is of similar date and also has a brick-walled garden.
In addition to these examples of town gardens and garden features in Yarmouth, Newport and Cowes there are at least 30 listed building entries for properties in other Island towns and villages which refer to garden walls or garden features.
The Isle of Wight Gardens Trust has not yet systematically recorded gardens or garden features within the Island’s older towns of Newport, Yarmouth, Brading and Cowes. Fieldwork might locate additional features to those recorded above.
New towns were established on the Isle of Wight in the late C18 and in the C19 as sea bathing and seaside holidays became popular. In some respects, Ryde may be considered to be the earliest ‘coastal resort’ on the Island, starting from its development in the late C18, but sea bathing also took place at Cowes during this period.
The birth of Ryde as a town commenced when William Player, the lord of the manor, linked two small communities with a gridiron pattern of streets, starting in about 1790. In the early days of its development access to the town from the sea was inconvenient, since passengers from the mainland had to be landed by wherries onto the open beach and transferred to dry land by horse and cart. Following the building of the first pier in 1814 and the commencement of regular steam ferries from Portsmouth in 1825 access to Ryde was much easier. In the late C18 and early C19 there was an emphasis on the health-giving properties of seaside holidays. Such holidays were initially the preserve of the well-to-do. However, the Island started to become more accessible quite early in the C19 as a result of regular ferry services although no railways were built on the Island until the 1860s.
Ventnor developed as a town from the 1830s after Sir James Clark (later a doctor to Queen Victoria) described the town as the perfect convalescent retreat. Located within the Undercliff, it had an exceptionally mild climate which attracted visitors throughout the year and became more accessible as steam packets took some of the anxiety out of sea travel. By the late C19, seaside holidays had become a possibility for a wider spectrum of British society than had previously been the case.
Sandown and Shanklin had started to develop as urban coastal resorts by the early 1860s (although many of the cottages ornés in Shanklin ‘Old Village’ dated from the early C19) but both resorts expanded greatly in the late C19.
Coastal villages as well as seaside towns expanded on the Island in the C19, for instance at Bembridge and Niton, or were created where no settlements had previously existed, for instance at Seaview, Gurnard and Totland. C19 gardens within the Island’s seaside towns and villages as well as inland country house gardens benefitted from the introduction of new species in common with other parts of Britain.
However, despite its generally mild climate, the Island can suffer from extreme and rapid weather changes. These climatic factors, together with long summer droughts, lack of shelter and a lack of arid soils (except for the Upper Greensand strip adjacent to the main Chalk ridge) may have proved a deterrent to the creation of Victorian plantsmen’s gardens on the Island similar to those common in the West Country.
Furthermore, C19 gardens were situated to maximise sea views and so did not provide the shelter required to develop plantsmen’s gardens in an area of such climatic extremes as the Island. Nevertheless, the generally mild winters did encourage the development of the smaller seaside villa gardens experimenting in formal Victorian sub-tropical bedding schemes featuring species such as Coryline australis and Trachycarpus fortunei (the Chusan palm), especially in the Ryde and Undercliff areas.
Historically and at the present day, strong north-westerly and south-westerly winds have prevented trees from reaching the same stature as in most parts of England.
Native trees have been the main feature inside most gardens except at Osborne, where many North American Victorian introductions were planted in the mid C19. However, C19 shelter belts around the edge of gardens included non-native species such as holm oak, laurels, cherry laurels and bays, still commonly seen on the Island, whilst Monterey Cypress became more popular in the early C20.
Substantial town-edge villas were characteristic of the late C18 and early C19.
On the Island, these town-edge villas were often associated with coastal resorts. Some of the earliest examples of suburban villa gardens on the Island were established at Ryde.
Many of the designed landscapes in the Ryde area were essentially park-like pleasure grounds with sea views and were associated with cottages ornés or marine villas. In the early days of its development, during the late C18 and early C19, Ryde differed from many inland mainland towns in that the owners of its suburban villas were generally not middle-class patrons but were often wealthy landowners seeking a second home by the sea and the health-giving properties of sea air and sea bathing.
However, later in the C19 seaside holidays in Ryde became accessible to middle class families, particularly after travel from the mainland became easier. From the mid C19 smaller villas were built for seasonal rental or as speculative developments designed to be let out as rooms or apartments.
A number of the finest villas in Ryde still stand, including the early C19 properties of Westmont (LB II), now part of Ryde School, Buckingham Villa (LB II) and Earl Spencer’s Marine Villa (later Westfield House) as well as the slightly later Marine Villa of c.1840 (LB II), now the Seaford Hotel. The six inch Ordnance Survey map of 1862 shows that these villas had spacious pleasure grounds.
Today, pleasure grounds with lawns and mature trees survive at Ryde to the north of Marine Villa and of Buckingham Villa, although some housing development has taken place in the grounds of the latter property which is now in divided ownership. The grounds of Westmont are now school playing fields and the grounds of Westfield and of Wellington Lodge have been developed for housing.
Pelhamfield lay on the western outskirts of Ryde and was developed c.1820-1860 with detached houses which had much smaller gardens than the earlier and grander houses closer to the town centre. The gardens in the Pelham Fields area seem to have remained largely undeveloped to the present day but it is not known how far they retain elements of their C19 character. Outlying properties along the coastline to the west and east of Ryde had larger areas of parkland Ryde House (LB II) to the west of the town was built for the Player family in 1810. The six inch Ordnance Survey map of 1862 shows that the house was set in parkland with a tree-lined avenue leading from a lodge beside Binstead Road to the house and another avenue (later known as Ladies Walk) defining the south-west edge of the park. Today much of the parkland area survives within Ryde Golf Course.
On the eastern side of Ryde was Appley House, lying close to the Solent shore, where a house and gardens are shown on John Andrews’ map of 1769. By the 1790s a small park was located to the south of the house and its pleasure grounds. Appley House (LL) is now the home of St Cecelia’s Abbey and open parkland still survives to the south of the house (LL).
To the east of Appley House lay the early C19 properties of St Clare and Puckpool, also close to the Solent shore. An irregular castellated mansion was built at St Clare in 1823 and a substantial cottage orné at Puckpool in 1822-4. Parkland was laid out around both properties. Puckpool was acquired by the War Department in 1861 and Puckpool Battery was built on part of the site. Today most of the former parkland of St Clare and Puckpool lies within the curtilage of the disused Harcourt Sands Holiday Centre but Puckpool House (LB II) survives and the site of the former Puckpool Battery is now a public park.
In the early C19 the large and significant St John’s estate (including parkland and pleasure grounds laid out Humphfry Repton) occupied land on the outskirts of Ryde to the south and east of Appley House. In the mid C19 this estate was split up. St John’s Park and Apley Tower (later Appley Towers) were developed on land that had formerly been part of the estate. St John’s House retained the pleasure grounds around the principal building. In 1871 John Peter Gassiot purchased St John’s House and engaged W B Page, the Southampton landscape gardener, to remodel the pleasure grounds. W B Page had previously worked at Steephill Castle in the 1830s and also carried out work at Whippingham Rectory.
Page’s landscaping at St John’s included a shrubbery walk which circumnavigated the grounds, a brick arched entrance way leading to the house via a stone lined hollow way, rock gardens, a water garden and a new eye catcher in the shape of a gothic folly in the woodland band to the north of the grounds visible from the terrace on the north side of the house.
St John’s House (LB II) and its grounds (LL) are now occupied by Oakfield Primary School. Elements of Page’s landscaping survive in the school grounds including the shrubbery walk and gothic folly.
St John’s Park (LL), on land taken formerly within the St John’s estate, was designed by local architect Thomas Hellyer. It was planned as an integral part of an up-market housing development, creating a communal park for the private use of the substantial villas surrounding it.
The Ordnance Survey map of 1863 shows St John’s Park as a tear-drop shaped area surrounded by houses in their own private grounds. Within the park a series of serpentine paths are shown, with a more direct route leading to a central formal circular feature (a summer house or bandstand) having a circular path around it. Groups of trees are shown within the open parkland to the south of the central summerhouse.
The area of St John’s Park survives to the present day although it is now dominated by secondary woodland. Former gardens (parterres), gravelled paths and lawned areas have been lost and only the brick base of the summer house/bandstand remains. Other surviving features are the remains of stone posts and gateposts (at the main entrance and smaller entrance on East Hill Road) and also the remains of iron railings around the perimeter of the park behind the villas. The property of Apley Tower (later Appley Towers) was developed on the eastern part of the former St John’s estate.
Apley Tower possessed formal gardens and parkland around the house and open woodland beside the Solent shore to the north. A folly, confusingly known as ‘Appley Tower’ (LB II), was built on the northern edge of the parkland beside the shore in the 1870s.
The house at Apley Tower was demolished in the 1950s and much of the site was developed for housing but the public park of Appley now occupies the northern part of the site.
Parkland continued to be created on either side of Ryde in the Victorian period and villas with smaller pleasure grounds were built along the road leading from Binstead to Ryde (Brookfield Lodge, Brookfield and Stonepit).
Quarr House, lying to the west of Binstead, was built for Admiral Sir Thomas John Cochrane in 1858 and parkland was laid out around the house. The house is now part of the early C20 Quarr Abbey (LB I). The framework of the C19 designed landscape survives including farmed former parkland, approach drives and ornamental planting around the house and elsewhere.
Between Quarr Abbey and the village of Binstead lies Quarr Wood which was part of the Fleming estate in the C19. The laying out of a new carriage road and the building of houses within the wood had commenced by 1861 in what a contemporary writer described as ‘the march of villa-building’.
Plots were marked out in the woodland within which ‘Quarrwood Lodge’, ’Wellwood’, ‘West View’, ‘Hazlemount’, ‘The Boulders’ and ‘Denmark House’ were built and a tree-lined ornamental drive was constructed, running northward from the carriage drive to the Solent. ‘Monksfield’ (later known as Binstead Hall) and ‘Macquarrie’ were built at a slightly later date and are shown for the first time on the 25 inch Ordnance Survey map of 1897-8.
Today the C19 properties in Quarr Wood still lie within well-wooded grounds although part of the wood was more intensively developed with houses in the late C20.
The estate of Woodlands Vale is a C19 creation on the east side of Ryde, located a little way inland from the coast to the south of Puckpool.
The principal building (LB II*), originally known as Woodlands, was built in 1829 and rebuilt in the 1850s or 1860s. It was then enlarged in 1870-71 to the designs of the distinguished architect Samuel Saunders Teulon for Colonel (later Baron) Calthorpe. Teulon also designed rose arches and a summer house within the garden.
The development of the grounds at Woodlands Vale can be traced on a series of Ordnance Survey maps and estate plans from 1830 to 1939. During this time the area of the pleasure grounds, parkland and woodland shelter belts expanded considerably to their maximum extent of about 73 acres. Fashionable Japanese features were added to the garden in the early C20.
The formal garden at Woodlands Vale lies to the north-east of the house and has a strongly architectural structure with a series of terraces leading the eye down to the formal cruciform-shaped pool at the bottom of the garden and beyond to views across the parkland to the Solent and Spitbank Fort.
Woodlands Vale is nationally significant as a well-preserved and representative example of a large formal Victorian/Edwardian garden (NHL II). It is of particular local importance since it is the only site on the Island within the category of Town, Suburban, Village and Coastal Gardens to be represented on the National Heritage List.
Springfield House (now Springfield Court) was a Victorian property built in 1832. It abutted the parkland of Woodlands Vale on its north-east side but had much smaller grounds than Woodlands Vale, with a total area of only seven acres.
The 25 inch Ordnance Survey map produced in the 1860s shows that the house was set back from the main entrance in Springvale Road (a coastal road running alongside the beach) and faced north east with sea views towards Spithead. It had pleasure grounds planted with conifers and deciduous trees and can be characterised as a Victorian woodland garden with ornamental drive and pool containing notable trees.
Springfield House was damaged by fire in 1983 and replaced by a modern neo Georgian apartment building in about 2002. This building now houses self catering holiday apartments but the pleasure grounds remain largely undeveloped with mature trees surviving, particularly around the perimeter of the site.
Cowes was popular for sea bathing in the late C18 and in the C19 became associated with yachting. In terms of designed landscapes, the town was dominated by the 216 acre Northwood Park from the early C19.
Its suburban villas did not generally possess the relatively extensive pleasure grounds that existed in Ryde although Egypt House and Grove House (close to the sea shore) and Westhill House (overlooking the harbour) were exceptions to this rule.
The coastline from Cowes Castle to Egypt Point began to be developed from the early C19. This development intensified in the later C19 after Cowes Castle (LB II*) became the home of the Royal Yacht Squadron in 1858 and its annual yachting regatta became patronised by royalty. Princes Green became a public open space on the seafront and by the end of the C19 development extended to the west of Egypt Point. There was some additional building in the early C20 but properties built on the coastal slope at the eastern end of this area still enjoyed wooded grounds.
Egypt House (LB II) is of C18 origin and a sea-bathing establishment was run from this property in the 1760s. The distinctive red-brick Tudor-style crenellated house dates mainly from the C19 and is set in fairly open grounds on the seaward side with a walled garden to the south-east of the house.
Other properties on Cowes seafront are agreeably varied, as are their grounds. These include the small gardens of elegant early C19 villas on Queen’s Road, the wooded grounds of Stanhope Lodge, the simple coastal-edge lawn of tiny Rosetta Cottage and at least two gardens that still retain seaside shelters from which yacht races were viewed. Individual gardens along the seafront at West Cowes are not necessarily of significance in themselves but contribute to the overall landscape character of the area.
Redevelopment of some properties and their grounds along the seafront has diluted this character to some extent. Cowes Conservation Area includes the Queen’s Road as a discrete character area but a more detailed Conservation Area Assessment could assist in the conservation of this area.
East Cowes was also a fashionable location for the smaller estates of wealthy incomers to the Island. Villa development in East Cowes in the mid C19 was stimulated by the presence of nearby Osborne.
An estate at East Cowes purchased by William Goodrich in 1784 was named Springhill in 1812. The notebooks of George Repton (assistant to John Nash) include drawings of a dwelling for Mr Goodrich which may have been built although the present house dates from the 1860s. Parkland is shown at Springhill on Greenwood’s 1826 map. The former parkland at Springhill (LL) survives as pasture and there are important views into this area from West Cowes on the other side of the River Medina.
The grounds of Elm Cottage (a typical cottage orné), Millfield, St Thomas, Slatwoods and the Lodge, all on the outskirts of East Cowes, were illustrated, described or mapped in early editions of George Brannon’s Vectis Scenery from 1820. These grounds were smaller than those of Springhill. A caravan park now occupies the grounds of St Thomas and only scant remains of garden walls survive at Slatwoods and the Lodge (where the houses no longer survive). Millfield House survives without its grounds and Elm Cottage and its grounds have been lost.
York Avenue, Victoria Grove and Adelaide Grove originally formed part of a planned East Cowes Park Estate and were laid out along the sides of a projected botanic garden. The garden was never completed and has been built over. Only a handful of the houses on the estate remain, including Kent House (LL) - once the home of Earl Mountbatten’s parents -and Osborne Cottage (LB II), sometime residence of Princess Beatrice, the youngest daughter of Queen Victoria. A listed greenhouse, covered way and summerhouse survive at Osborne Cottage.
The property of Padmore (LB II), located at Whippingham about 1 km south of Osborne, was the home of the Revd. James Joliffe, Chaplain to Queen Victoria, from 1841 to 1914. The Revd Joliffe may have created the small area of parkland at Padmore, traces of which still remain. There are also C20 garden features at Padmore.
Ventnor, located within the Undercliff, began to be developed in the 1830s but reached its heyday of popularity in the later Victorian and Edwardian eras.
The town itself was tightly packed with houses. However, nearby Bonchurch to the east of Ventnor - a community of three farms and a tiny church until the early C19 - offered a picturesque environment which attracted writers and artists. In fact Bonchurch rivalled the Ryde area in the development of C19 gardens. The broken irregular nature of the Undercliff gave an air of seclusion and rurality to the grounds of the large villas at Bonchurch and these grounds fully exploited the rugged aspects of the landscape. Examples of this use of existing landforms include the rock tunnel through which Undermount was approached and the natural viewing platform at Pulpit Rock. Even Bonchurch Pond became a design feature within the landscape.
East Dene was built on the site of Bonchurch Farm in about 1826 and is one of the early Undercliff Tudor-Gothic houses. It was the childhood home of Algernon Swinburne who later became a noted Victorian poet.
The house at East Dene was approached by a sunken winding carriage drive flanked by walls of rock and its garden was composed of terraces on different levels.
The grounds, although partially wooded, also afforded splendid glimpses of the English Channel to the south, as at many Bonchurch properties. o Today, the house (LB II*) and the framework of the designed landscape survives, as does an apsidal-ended walled garden in separate ownership.
Charles Dickens rented the property of Winterbourne at Bonchurch from July to October 1849. Winterbourne has operated as a guest house in recent years and retains large gardens.
Cliff Dene (a C19 Bonchurch property with wooded grounds formerly named Cliffend) was the home of the author H de Vere Stacpoole from the early 1930s until his death. He published a book of poems entitled In a Bonchurch Garden and presented Bonchurch Pond to the village in memory of his first wife.
Many more notable C19 Bonchurch gardens were described and illustrated in contemporary accounts. The Isle of Wight Gardens Trust has not yet carried out a systematic survey of Bonchurch gardens so it is unclear how far the design of these gardens has survived although some have remained undeveloped.
Shanklin ‘Old Village’ was first developed from a cluster of pre-existing farmsteads and cottages in the early C19.
Fashionable cottages ornés were built, generally with very small gardens although Eastcliff (LB II), Chine House (LB II) and Tower Cottage had somewhat larger pleasure grounds.
The expansion of Shanklin into a larger tourist resort in the later C19 resulted in fairly high density development close to the town centre with only a few seaside properties of this date, such as Rylstone House (LB II) in the Old Village, being set in larger grounds. The grounds of Rylstone House and Tower Cottage became public gardens in the C20.
Shanklin Manor, on a medieval site, lay to the south of Shanklin Chine adjacent to the parish church. By 1769 it had an enclosed garden. The house was rebuilt in the late C19 but the grounds were not substantially altered.
Landguard Manor (LB II) on the northern edge of Shanklin was another oldestablished estate. A small park, ornamental woodlands and orchards are shown on the 1793-4 Ordnance Survey drawing but the grounds were expanded and remodelled in the late C19 during the ownership of Colonel Atherley. The framework of the late C19 design still survives.
There was no residential development close to the seafront at Sandown until the mid C19 and the resort largely developed in the second half of the C19.
Development was generally of fairly high density, as at Shanklin, and few ornamental grounds are shown along the seafront on the 1897-8 25 inch Ordnance Survey maps except for those of Fern Cliff (now a public garden).
Los Altos was built on the outskirts of Sandown in the 1870s as a seaside residence for George Drabble.
A firm of landscape gardeners was employed to lay out the grounds at Los Altos which included a small parkland paddock and a tree-lined drive leading towards Sandown Station.
A sunken rose garden to the north of the house is of early C20 date.
The principal building at Los Altos is now a hotel and its grounds include the rose garden. The parkland paddock has become a public park.
Smaller Island settlements which saw the development of high-class coastal residences during the C19 included Seaview, Bembridge and Niton.
The seaside village and small resort of Seaview, located to the east of Ryde, grew up after 1800 on an unsettled piece of the coast where previously there had been only a saltern and a fort. In the C19 Seaview became a popular coastal resort for the upper and middle classes and yachting became a popular activity.
Properties at the centre of Seaview were small houses and cottages but there were more substantial houses with parklands and sea views to the west and south of the settlement.
The grounds of Seafield House (LB II) are shown on Clarke’s map of 1812 and those of Marine Villa, aka Seaview House on Greenwood’s map of 1826. Fairy Hill (LB II), slightly inland and to the southwest of Seaview, was of C18
origin and its parkland is shown on the 1793-4 Ordnance Survey drawing as is that of the nearby property of Seagrove with its coastal woodland.
Some areas of former parkland and ornamental woodland have survived around Seagrove and Fairy Hill on the outskirts of Seaview, contributing to its overall character.
The Bembridge area comprised a peninsula known as ‘Bembridge Isle’ located at the eastern extremity of the Isle of Wight and almost cut off from the rest of the Island by Brading Haven (drained c.1880) and the chalk downs.
By the early C19, Bembridge had started to become a seasonal retreat for the affluent classes in a similar fashion to East Cowes and Seaview. Links with sailing developed later in the century. C19 and early C20 development spread across the seaward end of the peninsula, expanding the existing irregular row settlement of Bembridge Street and infilling between pre-existing scattered farmsteads.
In the first half of the C19, residences with large pleasure grounds were built beyond Bembridge’s historic core. These properties lay close to the coast and the harbour to allow sea views. They included Bembridge Lodge (LB II), Hillgrove (attributed to the architect John Nash), East Cliff and Tyne Hall. Today, the grounds of these properties remain at least partially undeveloped. Bembridge Lodge and Tyne Hall retain elements of the original design.
The area of Bembridge to the north of the church has a strong landscaped character provided by a broad straight drive (Ducie Avenue) and Victorian planting. Much of this design character relates to work carried out by a local landowner, Colonel Moreton. He introduced regular polygonal land divisions east of his onetime residence at Hillgrove to carve out spacious plots for two storey residences, purportedly for his daughters. These residences include Ducie Cottage, Magnolia House and Balure.
Steyne House (LB II) was built in the early C19, slightly inland and away from the centre of Bembridge on the site of an existing farmstead. By 1866 it had a small pleasure ground around the house and a small area of parkland to the north (LL). The grounds continued to develop into the early C20.
The village of Niton is of medieval origin but Niton Undercliff, between the inner cliff and the coast, developed from the late C18 as the scenic beauty of the area became appreciated. Here, at the southernmost tip of the Island, is some of its wildest coastal scenery and Niton Undercliff contains a scatter of mainly C19 properties ‘placed where practical in the tumbled landscape’.
Some of the earliest properties at Niton Undercliff, such as Puckaster Cottage (LB II) and the Orchard (LB II), were noted cottages ornés or marine villas and the grounds of later properties also exploited the picturesque Undercliff location. Greenwood’s 1826 map depicts gentlemen’s residences with surrounding grounds at Knowle, Mount Cleve (LB II), Westcliff and Beauchamp. The six inch Ordnance Survey of 1862 shows a network of roads between St Catherine’s Lighthouse and Undercliff Drive linking properties with surrounding grounds including La Rosier, Windcliff, Thorncliff and Niton Lodge.
The Royal Sandrock Hotel and the Victoria Hotel are also marked on the 1862 map, emphasising that the area was popular with upper class visitors as well as with well-to-do residents. In the 1830s the future Queen Victoria had stayed with her mother at the Royal Sandrock Hotel (burnt down c. 1990), thus helping to establish the popularity of the area Rosiere Villa (which had the later names of La Rosier, Verlands, Puckwell House and the Undercliff Hotel) was built by 1835. It became known as Verlands in 1865 and at that time it had a winter garden on the south front and a small park on the other side of a public road, to which it was connected by a tunnel. The house was destroyed in World War II and the grounds have been redeveloped.
Windcliff, built c.1838 as a summer residence for the Kirkpatrick family, is now a hotel but still has 4 acres of wooded grounds.
Holiday chalets are now set in the grounds of Westcliff.
Mount Cleve, now Mount Cleves retains grounds of about 7 acres including mature woodland, with a series of terraces and paths leading to a cliff with caves, as well as to vantage points with views over the surrounding coastline. There is a folly in the form of a church turret (LB II).
St Helens, unlike other historic coastal settlements such as Bembridge and Niton, remained a largely agricultural settlement in the C19 with the only large villas being Castle House and St Helens House. Both had pleasure grounds although those of St Helen’s House were relatively modest in size.
Castle House (now ‘The Castle’ LB II) was built in 1842 and a late C19 sales catalogue states that ‘the grounds were laid out by a skilled landscape gardener in about the year 1866’.
The property was occupied by Sir Harry Baldwin, Dentist to Queen Victoria, from 1896. At this time the garden of 16 acres contained ‘fine oak, elm and other forest trees, flower gardens, tennis and other lawns, ornamental trees and shrubs, orchards and kitchen garden and a peach house’.
Today, the grounds of Castle House survive (LL), now divided between various owners but retaining original features shown on plans of 1899 and 1902.
The remaining area of garden now owned by ‘The Castle’ is typical of the late Victorian period. It is also one of the few relatively well-preserved examples from this period on the Island which means that it is locally significant.
Historically, Freshwater consisted of a number of scattered settlements rather than a single nucleated village. Perhaps because of its rural location, its relative isolation and its lack of a single settlement centre it did not become the focus for clusters of early C19 upper class residences in the same way as Bembridge, Seaview or Niton Undercliff.
However, the properties of Norton Lodge and Westhill - on the Solent shore opposite Yarmouth – were set in parkland by the early decades of the C19 and Farringford Hill has been built by 1802.
Farringford Hill was later known as Farringford. It became the home of the poet Alfred Lord Tennyson and his wife Emily in 1853. By this time an area of parkland had been created, softening the originally very unsheltered setting of the house.
The principal building at Farringford was much altered and extended between 1825 and 1833 but the Tennysons added an additional wing in 1871.
Many improvements to the grounds at Farringford were also made by the Tennysons including the creation of a sunken path along a diverted right of way, the construction of a footbridge across the sunken path and the planting of additional trees within existing shelterbelts.
The journal of Emily Tennyson has many references to gardening (including work in the walled kitchen garden) and to garden features such as the ‘sunk fence’ (ha-ha), the ‘wilderness’ and the summer house in Maiden’s Croft.
After World War II Farringford (LB I) became a hotel with part of the former parkland in use as a golf course. Self-catering holidays are now provided within the grounds.
The designed landscape at Farringford (LL) retains its C19 framework and individual features such as the walled kitchen garden, sunken path and footbridge (now rebuilt). It is of historical importance as the scene of well-documented gardening activities by the Tennyson family. It also provides an appropriate setting for the house, providing views out of the park mainly looking eastward to Afton Down and the coastline beyond as far as Blackgang Chine.
A conservation management plan has set out proposals for the designed landscape. The current restoration scheme includes work to be carried out within the walled kitchen garden.
Norton Lodge is now a holiday centre although the outline of its former parkland is still identifiable. The grounds at Westhill were redeveloped in the later C20. Development in the Freshwater area during the later C19 was influenced by its associations with the poet Alfred Lord Tennyson as well as by commercial considerations.
Partly as a result of the Tennyson connection, various properties in the Freshwater area were built or extended in the second half of the C19 including Dimbola (LB II), home of the photographer Julia Margaret Cameron. However, the only houses with substantial grounds were Freshwater Court (LL), built for Tennyson’s brother and The Briary, sometime home of the Victorian painter G.F.Watts . Wooded pleasure grounds survive at Freshwater Court. The Briary was was destroyed by fire and rebuilt but still retains its grounds.
Totland, at the western extremity of the Island was an area of farmland within Freshwater Parish in the mid C19. It was developed as a small seaside resort from 1870 (Isle of Wight Council 2012a). The growth of a village centre along the Broadway and the planned development of the Totland Bay Estate Company to the south can be traced on Ordnance Survey maps of 1896 and 1907.
The village centre at Totland was characterised by modest semi-detached villas with small gardens whilst the planned estate of Totland Bay contained large villas set within their own grounds (often wooded) in prime locations overlooking the sea.
Large villas within Totland Bay that have retained their grounds include Heatherwood (predating the planned development of the area), Hatherwood House, an imposing Edwardian residence positioned in a mature landscape garden (LL) and Bayfield , a house set within mature gardens with a prime view over the bay.
The Turf Walk, specifically created as a promenade along the cliff, also survives.
Gurnard, close to West Cowes, was another coastal village that was developed on the site of former farmland in the mid C19. Land was put up for sale as building plots with the possible aim of creating a park estate to attract retired service personnel as is indicated by the width of Worsley Road and Solent View Road. These roads are shown on the six inch Ordnance Survey of 1863 but development had only just started at this date.
Most of the development within Gurnard consisted of fairly modest villas or cottages with small gardens. However, two larger properties with landscaped grounds were built close to Gurnard during the C19. Woodvale Cottage (later known as Woodvale House) predated the development of the village, having been built in the 1820s or 1830s as the ‘marine residence’ of a Captain William Farington R.N and substantially altered in the 1840s. The 1863 map shows a pleasure garden and a small park attached to Woodvale House. Today, the house survives but the grounds have largely been developed.
The Dell, in Cockleton Lane, was built by Captain Thomas Hudson R.N. in about 1888. Landscaped grounds with much woodland planting had been developed by 1987. The Dell was demolished in the 1970s and the site is now Gurnard Pines Holiday Village.