Island Life Magazine Ltd August/September 2009 | Page 38

life

ISLAND HISTORY

Photo: The Cowes - East Cowes floating Bridge - Right: Holy Trinity Church in Queens
Road, was consecrated as “a place of worship on Cowes foreshore for sailors and
seafarers.

the exhibits I found a dirk from Hitler’s

The battery of brass cannons at the

and in 2008 the Society awarded a

bunker, given to Lord Beaverbrook by

castle are used at the start of the Cowes

Certificate of Merit to Chit Chat House, a

Stalin.

Week races. They came from the brig

Grade 11 listed building in Queens Road.

Gary Hall’s classic ‘Stop me and buy
one’ trike was parked outside the Plaza
Ice Cream Parlour. “Tourists still ask if the

Royal Adelaide and were presented to the
RYS by the Prince of Wales in 1895.
Venerables maintained that Cowes

Rosetta Cottage stands in the same road
and this is wh ere Winston Churchill’s
father, Randolph Churchill, proposed to

ices are still 2d and 4d,” he told me. Ice

owed its reputation as a watering place

his mother, Jennie Jerome. Later as Lady

cream is in the family as his wife, Debbie,

to the RYS and by the end of the 18th

Randolph Churchill, she described the

won Britain’s Fastest Scooper Award in

century the town was a popular holiday

summer season at Cowes in the 1870s

2008 (28 cones in a minute).

destination famous for its sea bathing. A

as “Delightfully small and peaceful. No

coloured engraving by John Hassell dated

glorified villas, no esplanade or pier, no

Victoria Parade, opened on June 22,

1796 shows a bath house and bathing

bands, no motors or crowded tourist

1897, to commemorate Queen Victoria’s

machines near the castle, later the bath

steamers.”

Diamond Jubilee. At the end of the

house was turned into a private house

parade is Cowes Castle and home of

while the bathing machines ended up at

was consecrated as “a place of worship

the Royal Yacht Squadron since 1815.

Gurnard Marsh converted into beach huts.

on Cowes foreshore for sailors and

Venerables writes in 1860 “The Royal

I walked along the esplanade to Princes

I scurried down Watch House Lane to

Holy Trinity Church in Queens Road,

seafarers”. The church acquired Royal

Yacht Club resembles a London club,

Green to see the ornamental drinking

patronage in Queen Victoria’s time, a

and possesses a library, reading-room,

fountain given to Cowes in 1854 by

patronage that continues today

dining-room, cellar of choice wines for

Robert Stephenson, the railway engineer.

use of its members.”

Designed in the shape of a temple and

a large Italian building and listed on

painted white with gold leaf, the fountain

English Heritage’s ‘at risk’ register in need

Beaulieu were used to build the circular

is inscribed with a verse from St. John’s

of short term maintenance. It was the

castle after King Henry dissolved the

gospel.

seat of G.H. Ward, author of the once

Materials from the monastery at

Above the town is Northwood House,

monastery in 1539. It was used first as

It looks sad today despite efforts by the

notorious ‘Ideal of a Christian Church’,

a prison for pirates and later as a state

Cowes branch of the Isle of Wight Society

and he also added a tower designed by

prison with D’Avenant, Shakespeare’s

to have it repainted. The Society monitors

John Nash to St. Mary’s church when

godson and the father of English opera, a

planning applications and keeping a

it was West Cowes Chapel while the

famous prisoner here.

watchful eye on the Island’s architecture

Roman Catholic church of St. Thomas of

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