Island Life Magazine Ltd April/May 2014 | Page 111

n Ventnor...

landslips cause disruptions at
various times. The Graben is the
name given to the geological
‘fault’ which sits above the
town. It moves regularly and the
results are part and parcel of life
in the town.
That great chronicler of
England, Nikolaus Pevsner,
however, is quite tough on
the appearance of the town,
although lyrical about its
setting. He wrote: “Ventnor is
disappointing architecturally,
but its site is dramatic. It is built
on a very irregular path of the
Undercliff, where steep hillsides
alternate with shallow hollows,
legacies of the cataclysmic
landslides over several thousand
years ago. In the background
are the steep slopes which
characterise the inland side of

the Undercliff...the site could
have offered great opportunities,
for sensitively designed layouts,
relating buildings to rugged
landscapes, but this happened
only in a few places.
“Most of the town was
developed piecemeal, providing
accidental relationships between
buildings and broken land-form
which are sometimes striking
but too often seem simply
awkward. Demolitions and
replacements over the last eight
years (there was some war-time
bombing) have added to the
disjointed effects.”
It would be fair to say that
Ventnor, like much of the
Island, has been challenged by
what might be thought to be
aesthetically desirable and what
has been economically practical.