Southern Television is Broadcast to Ventnor, by Michael Freeman. ITV’s Southern Television started broadcasting to the South of England on the evening of 30 Aug 1958, and the article highlights some of the shows viewers enjoyed over the years included The Army Game, Cheyenne, Take Your Pick, and children’s programmes like Noddy. Popular performers including… read more »
Ventnor Quarry, site of the town’s first railway station. By Michael Freeman. The article includes contemporary photographs of the entrance to the new railway tunnel through St Boniface Down, and of the the station site with construction underway (shown here). PDF of the article available to read here: Ventnor Quarry, site of the town’s first… read more »
Millmore’s Garage. By Michael Freeman. Matthew Martin Millmore started this garage business after WW2, and expanded it with his sons Alan and Joe. In 1958, Joe emigrated to Australia where his sister Mary Millmore (later Sheehan) lived. The Millmore family were supporters of Holy Trinity Church where Matthew was a churchwarden and his wife Rose… read more »
Ventnor Park in the Early Days by Colin Beavis. The history of Ventnor Park from its early years to the present, including a photograph showing the first houses built on what became Park Avenue, and another of the bandstand, which was moved to the Park from Ventnor Pier in 1903. PDF of article available here… read more »
Dean Crossing and the new Whitwell Road. The new Whitwell Road linking the village to Ventnor was opened in 1890, and seven years later the railway arrived in Whitwell as part of the Newport, Godshill and St Lawrence Company’s branch from Merstone. A photo from 1920 shows Dean Crossing, with the pedestrian bridge and the crossing-keeper’s… read more »
The Buddle Inn, Niton Undercliff, by Michael Freeman. It is thought that the Buddle in was originally a farmhouse, but the photograph here shows it in around 1910 when it had been a drinking house for some three centuries, and the licensee was probably John Cotton. In the 1830s it provided contraband liquor from the… read more »
Wheeler’s Bay to Monk’s Bay coastline, by Michael Freeman. An image from an Edwardian post card shows the coastline at Wheeler’s Bay and the cliffs beyond, the photograph taken from the site of Ventnor Gas Works. The view changed fundamentally with the construction of the revetment in the 1980s which extended to Horseshoe Bay and… read more »
Buona Vista Road rubbish tip. By Michael Freeman. In December 1903 19 year old Wallace Lowe and his horse had an incredible escape when they fell down the cliff at the end of Buona Vista Road while tipping a load of rubbish into the sea. The article describes the history of the road, and the… read more »
Holy Trinity Church Ventnor, by Michael Freeman. The article includes a picture of the Church taken shortly after completion in 1862, showing its unusually narrow tower and steeple. The site of the Church had earlier been considered for the terminus of the planned railway line to Ventnor; at that time the intended route was via… read more »
Carfax Pension, by Michael Freeman. The Carfax in St Lawrence, next door to the St Lawrence Inn in this photograph, seems to have been built in the 1860s, probably as a hotel – the Inn was once described as the hotel tap. The French word ‘Pension’ means a boarding house, and may have been chosen… read more »