Theodore Ridley Saunders designed many houses in and around Ventnor – probably the most impressive and recognisable being the terrace known as Alexandra Gardens (where Sir Edward Elgar, one of Britain’s greatest composers, spent his honeymoon in 1889). Many of his commissions were for Public Works, notably the water supplies for the Isle of Wight… read more »
Many locally well-known people are buried in our local churchyards and in the Cemetery in Upper Ventnor. One such grave (probably the largest plot in the whole of the cemetery) is that of Theodore Ridley Saunders, the architect of St. Margaret’s Church in Lowtherville Road, which opened in 1883. Theodore was born in Bethnal Green,… read more »
In the 1920s, Ventnor Council School produced a series of highly professional-looking school magazines, printed by the Romsey Press and with Miss R. Buckley B.A. as its ‘Editress’, Margaret Hadenham as its ‘Assistant Editress’, working within a committee that included Brenda Brigden, Maude Tyrell, and Dorothy Westmore, in turn supported by Manager Mr. S.J. Guppy… read more »
In the last Century, there was a staggering range of nicknames for the people who lived in Ventnor. It was once common for almost everyone in the town to be nicknamed. Some names reflected what the individuals did, so ‘Fishy Frampton’, not surprisingly had a wet fish shop. ‘Sooty Humphries’, was predictably a chimney sweep,… read more »
28 October 2022: Ventnor & District Local History Society Monthly meeting. (7.30 – 9 pm) The Speaker this month is John Elton, with a talk on Seeing and Visual Imagination in Victorian England. His talk uses the work of authors and artists, some of whom visited or lived in Ventnor and the surrounding district, to… read more »
In July 1965 Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh came on tour to the Isle of Wight, paying a short visit to Ventnor as part of it. Arriving in Ventnor, the royal visitors went first to Ventnor Park where the Queen planted a tree to commemorate the occasion and met Mr Frederick Yelf… read more »
Vivian Christopher Joseph Yorke was born in 1896 in Norfolk and, after spending his early years in India with his parents, came to Ventnor in 1907. In April 1909, at the age of just 13, along with Mr Alfred Du Feu, he founded the first ever group of scouts in Ventnor, named ‘Bull Patrol’. Mr… read more »
Frankie Ballard, known as ‘Frankie Shag’, lived in Sandy Lane, Shanklin. The ‘Shag’ suffix came from his father, Stanley Ballard, who was familiarly (or otherwise) known as ‘Shagger Ballard’. He lived at 7, Percy Road Sandown, registered as such in Kelly’s Directories of both 1935-6 and 1951. Frankie worked originally for Carpenters, builders in Shanklin…. read more »
It is hard to imagine the Royal Navy figuring in a carnival procession in the 21st Century, but in 1911 or 1912, Carnival float no. 23 was photographed in Clarence Road, Ventnor in front of Violet Cottage which occupied a position near to the junction with East Street. What the float reveals is the scale… read more »
Visiting circuses were a common feature of Ventnor through the 1920s and 1930s. They were typically held in a field off of York Road, or else in a field near the top of Down Lane. Keepers would daily take the elephants down to the slipway on the east side of the Pier. Here they would… read more »