Ventnor Secondary Modern School was completed and opened in the spring of 1957 at a cost of around £160,000. It was among the finest secondary schools built on the south coast in the early post-war years and many Island businesses were involved in its construction and fitting out. Moreys, for example, supplied the Gurjun floor… read more »
The next meeting of Ventnor & District Local History Society will be on Friday 29 July, when the speaker will be author Stephan Roman. His talk, Ventnor and the Struggle Against Imperial Russia, tells the surprising story of how between 1855 and 1860 Ventnor became a favoured summer retreat for Russians looking for political and… read more »
Ena grew up at 19 Lowtherville Road at the beginning of the twentieth century, part of a largely self-supporting family. Her two brothers, Gordon and Enis, were valets to Mr. Baillon who lived at Caithness on St. Boniface Road. It was not long before Ena was herself engaged to assist the Baillons, her job being to… read more »
Residents who regularly used Ventnor Railway Station in Mitchell Avenue before it closed in 1966, will remember the model of Noah’s Ark in the booking hall. It was constructed in 1933 by Mr M E Twyman of Freshwater and Mr J Needham from Totland Bay and was used as a focal point for charity collections… read more »
Victoria Street in the 1870s had no buildings on its west side, the ground sloping steeply away to a large area of land that, for many years, was known locally as ‘The Swamp’, and today is mostly just a car park. It was in the 1880s that it gained notoriety as a wet and muddy… read more »
The new paperback edition of Isle and Empires by Stephan Roman (Medina Publishing, 2022) is now available in our online shop and in the Heritage Centre. In this updated edition of the book the author asserts that ‘It is important that we understand the history of the British relationship with Romanov Russia if we are… read more »
During Ventnor Fringe, we will be repeating this very successful guided walk around Ventnor. The walk, Ventnor – Cradle of the Russian Revolution, is led by author Stephan Roman and is based on Ventnor’s fascinating 19th century connection with some of the Russian radicals of the 1860s: writers and poets who opposed Russian imperialism and… read more »
On the east side of Victoria Street is the three-storey stone house with known as Monte Bello Boarding House. Built around 1840-1850, it has a fascinating history. Originally erected as a lodging house for the town’s growing visitor population, in 1860, the Mercury recorded that a Russian couple were lodging at Monte Bello. Mr and… read more »
Herbert Charles Beavis was born in 1886, one of thirteen children (eight girls and five boys) to Frank Beavis and his wife Edith (nee Slaughter). Like his two brothers (Hector Beavisand Bernard Beavis), he had maritime connections (albeit tenuous). The family lived in Morey’s Cottage, Steephill, on the Steephill Castle estate where Frank was a… read more »
Our Society ‘Monthly Meetings’ are back at last! The first meeting for 2022 will be on 24 June, when Andy Butler and Alan Clark will be presenting a talk entitled A Naturalist’s Lockdown. The photograph here is one of Andy’s, taken on Bembridge Down in December 2021. Andy’s talks are always popular, and since we… read more »