Local History Articles

Myrtle Bay  a postcard tale. By Michael Freeman.

Ventnor’s Pier in the later 1950s: Ventnor’s pier was restored and refurbished in the early 1950s in a style that took inspiration from the 1951 Festival of Britain. Pleasure steamers once again began calling at the pier in the holiday season, with the new pierhead buildings including an avant garde ‘Calypso’ coffee bar as well as… read more »

The Enterprise Motor Launch:  The Enterprise motor launch was the largest hand-crafted wooden boat constructed by local longshoremen. It was the work of Jim Blake and Viv Spencer, first taking to the water in the 1964 season. For ten years, it carried visitors along the Undercliff coast, as well as acting as a back-up rescue… read more »

Ventnor’s Department Store: Sharpe’s department store in Ventnor High Street was founded in 1893 and continued to trade right up to 1982, by which time it occupied three sets of premises on Ventnor High Street, all extending over two floors, and a photograph shows staff posing for a photographer on the day of the Coronation… read more »

The Rugen, Park Avenue, Ventnor  by Michael Freeman. ‘Park View’, the rather grand late-Victorian house that stands at the western end of Park Avenue in Ventnor, is familiar to many older residents as the building that was used to teach the children from Albert Street School during the 1939-45 war. It was built about 1890… read more »

The Central Kitchen, by Colin Beavis The Central Kitchen was built at the top of Lowtherville Road in Upper Ventnor in 1946. It adjoined St. Margaret’s School. A small army of cooks and support staff provided 500 meals a day to local schoolchildren. In the 1990s, the building was converted for community use as St. Margaret’s… read more »

Ventnor Beach by Wickenden & Co, by Michael Freeman A fine picture of Ventnor beach from the 1920s tells the story of how fast social proprieties over bathing were changing. While many of the wheeled bathing machines remain, a few have been converted to stationary huts and there are some new changing tents for bathers…. read more »

Wickenden & Co Photographers Ventnor, by Michael Freeman Robert Wickenden was a photographer and post-card seller who first opened a shop in Ventnor in 1901. He specialised in outdoor photography, as seen in many of his post-cards. By 1910, he was established in both High Street and Pier Street, with the firm remaining at 31… read more »

Rene Howe: one among Ventnor’s finest. By Michael Freeman. The recently reopened Rene Howe Walk outside the entrance to the Winter Gardens down by the Cascade to the Haven and Esplanade was named after Rene,  a teacher at Ventnor Junior School for some 30 years, and remembered by two generations of Ventnor children. PDF of… read more »

Dorcas Barnett by Colin Beavis. Dorcas Barnett will always be remembered as a key driving force behind Ventnor’s successful carnivals in the 1970s and 1980s. But she will also be familiar from Barnet’s Pork Butchers on Ventnor High Street, where she took the money at a tiny ticket window at the rear of the shop… read more »