Bonchurch Women’s Institute was formed in 1922 and lasted for 70 years, finally winding up its affairs in November 1992, the outcome of rising costs and a falling membership. By that time, it had been reduced to just 19 members, most of whom were pensioners with the oldest member aged 94. They had tried and… read more »
Through the first half of the 20th Century, there were fruther efforts to construct a cliff railway in Ventnor, beginning with Fritz Bernard Behr’s scheme in 1908. His plan once more linked Esplanade, Church Street, Station and the top of the Downs with an electrically operated solution. The cost was estimated at about £25,000, which included… read more »
Cliff railways or funiculars, as well as cliff lifts, have long been a familiar sight across some British seaside resorts, most constructed in the later Victorian era when there seemed to be an almost endless fascination with applying ingenious engineering solutions to the problems that steep gradients presented for visitors in resorts located in areas… read more »
On 1st June 1954, 26 pupils and three adults (two teachers and one former pupil) set off on a school trip to Montreux, Switzerland. Arriving in Montreux 24 hours later, the group were soon settled into the youth hostel at Montreux-Territet that was to be their residence for the next nine days. Over the following… read more »
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 »