history
Island Life - April/May 2010
in a squall, the only survivors from
wrote George Brannon in 1824
the 334 people aboard, Benjamin
when the scenery, together with
Cuddeford and Sydney Fletcher,
the beneficial climate began to
were brought to the home and
attract visitors. In 1866 the first
treated by Dr. Williamson.
railway arrived at Ventnor with a
A sequel to the story is that
line running from Ryde St. John’s
four-year-old Winston Churchill
to Shanklin and Wroxall and
was holidaying on the Island
through a tunnel in St. Boniface
at the time and witnessed the
Down to Ventnor Station. The line
wreck of the training ship from
carried 12 trains per day and from
the cliffs, an experience he wrote
1891 to 1908 the Isle of Wight
about later in his book, ‘My Early
Railway introduced the “Invalid
Life’. And a final postscript –
Specials”, a non-stop service for
the metal staircase leading from
patients travelling to the Royal
Spring Gardens to Madeira Road
National Hospital.
is reputed to have come from St.
In 1897 a second line from
Catherine’s lighthouse when the
Newport to St. Lawrence was
tower was lowered in 1875 by
introduced via Merstone, Godshill
taking seven metres out of the
and Whitwell and a further mile
middle tier.
of track was added in 1900. It
But back to the Undercliff and
was last railway to be built on
the Cricket Club formed in 1858
the Island and the first to be
with matches being played on
closed but I like to think of the
Cowlease Field and other parts
passengers seeing the view of the
of the town until a permanent
sea for the first time as the train
home was found for the club at
trundled through the Undercliff
Steephill Castle. Famous players
section from St. Lawrence to
like Jack Hobbs visited and during
Ventnor Town (later called Ventnor
the Second World War, servicemen
West). The railway closed in 1952
often made up an opposing team.
and in 1966 a section of the line
The leasehold of Steephill was
from Shanklin to Ventnor was also
bought from the IWCC in 1996
closed.
and since then the club has gone
The sun breaks through the
from strength to strength with a
clouds on a pewter-coloured sea
Cricket Academy being opened in
as I leave Ventnor, driving up the
2003.
one-in-four incline on Zig-Zag
The mock-gothic Steephill Castle
Road. Ventnor grew from a small
was built by John Hamborough
fishing village into a Victorian
in 1835 at a cost of £250,000.
health spa to be called “the
After the raid on Ventnor on
English Madeira”. As Fay Brown
August 12th, 1940, school