Ventnor Heritage Centre

"To Collect, Record and preserve the rich heritage and history of Ventnor and surrounding villages, and share it with local and wider communities"

Ventnor and District Local History Society |

Ventnor and District Local History Society

Researcher Jeff Mazo in the archive room

Ventnor and District Local History Society covers Ventnor and the Undercliff, from Luccombe in the East to Chale in the west, including the inland villages of Whitwell, Wroxall and Godshill.  The Society is based in the Ventnor Heritage Centre.

For opening times please see Ventnor Heritage Centre home page.

Membership:
We welcome new members, so please contact secretary@ventnorheritage.org.uk if you are interested in the local history of our area, and would like to get involved, or simply support us. Annual membership runs from January to December and costs £12.  Click here for information about becoming a member.

Monthly meetings and talks:
The Society holds popular monthly meetings, with guest speakers covering a wide range of local history subjects.

Our Collection:
Our collection contains photographs, prints, documents and artefacts.

Research:
The database listing items in our collection is available to search in the Heritage Centre, and our volunteers are happy to undertake research enquiries for visitors. There is no charge for this, but donations are very welcome, and are used for our conservation programme and to help us to preserve our collection.

Publications:
We publish  newsletters for members and write a weekly local history article which is published on our News pages and in the local paper, the South Wight ChronicleBack copies of the articles can be accessed in the Heritage Centre. Local history publications, many of them written by Society members, are available for sale in our Museum and in our online shop.

Photographs and prints:
We have now embarked on a programme of digitising our collection to prints to preserve it for future generations. Some of the digital images have been used on this website, and we are adding more material all the time. If you would like higher resolution copies of any of the images here for publishing purposes please contact us. We can also provide prints for personal use for a small fee to cover admin costs.

Donations:
We are entirely managed and run by volunteers, and welcome donations to  help us to collect, record and preserve the rich heritage and history of Ventnor and surrounding villages and share it with local and wider communities.





Exhibitions, stories, images . . .

Olivia: Portrait of a Life

Olivia Parkes (1881-1962) was born in Walsall in the Midlands, but for many years lived a solitary life in a wooden hut in Myrtle Bay in Ventnor, where local people referred to her as ‘Britannia’, and her life has been a constant source of fascination to local people and visitors. This new exhibition for 2024, inspired in part by the ‘Olivia’ art installation by Teresa Grimaldi and Sarah Vardy shown at Ventnor Fringe Festival in 2023, features a model of Olivia’s home (Britannia’s Hut) and is accompanied by an extensive board display. A new book, 'Britannia, The Extraordinary Life of Olivia Parkes' is available to buy in the Ventnor Heritage Centre, or by post from our Online Shop.  

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