"To make the past present, to bring the distant near . . . to call up our ancestors before us with all their peculiarities of language, manners, and garb, to show us over their houses, to seat us at their tables, to rummage their old-fashioned ward-robes, to explain the uses of their ponderous furniture . . . " Thomas Babington Macaulay describing what the study of history can do (written in 1828)
Members of Ventnor & District Local History Society receive newsletters through the year. Past newsletters are available here.
You can join the Society at the Heritage Centre, or by coming along to one of our monthly meetings, or by post or bank transfer (please email us for details if you wish to use bank transfer). Please make cheques payable to Ventnor & District Local History Society.
Ventnor once had two railway stations. And for something like 100 years, trains were the primary means by which visitors arrived in the town. The main line came in via a long tunnel under St. Boniface Down. It linked the resort with Ryde and the towns along the east side of the Island. The second line came from Newport and Merstone, terminating at a station behind Steephill Castle. The photograph here is of a Beyer Peacock 2-4-0 tank loco on the turntable at Ventnor’s main station circa 1910.