Island Life Magazine Ltd December 2009/January 2010 | Page 38

life

ISLAND HISTORY

Photo: Yarmouth Harbour - Right: The George Hotel

Yarmouth
By June Elford

The trees and hedges are wearing their

during the reign of Henry I he granted

and watch the swans on Thorley Brook.

autumn colours as I drive to the town

Yarmouth a charter, the first town on the

The block of flats nearby occupies the

Yarmouth. It’s the second smallest town

Island to receive a charter.

site of the former Isle of Wight and

in the United Kingdom and I get my

Yarmouth today is as compact as it was

Lymington Steam Laundry established in

first glimpse of the pier pointing to the

centuries ago. So let’s start from the car

1895, a company that generated its own

mainland and the Solent dotted with

park off River Road where I follow the

electricity and eventually provided electric

white sails from Tennyson Road.

path to the tidal mill, built in 1793 and

light for the whole town, St. James’

now a tall red brick house where A.J.P.

Church being the first church on the

settlements on the Isle of Wight, in 1085

Taylor, the writer, lived for some time. The

Island to change from candles to electric

the Domesday Book records that two

land to the north of the mill was once a

light.

Saxons were granted a hide of land at

market garden for which the tenant paid

Eremud, meaning ‘muddy estuary’. The

an annual rent of one pair of ducks and

Primary School in Mill Road, built as a

names Yarmouth and Eremue appeared

further along the mill bank I cross the old

National School in 1855 at a cost of £l,l00

on different documents for hundreds of

railway track that ran from Newport to

though the school’s records show that as

years but on the Town Seal the name is

Freshwater before Dr. Beeching axed it in

early as 1735 boys were being educated

spelt Eremud.

1954.

elsewhere in the High Street.

Yarmouth was one of the earliest

Baldwin de Redvers, Lord of the Island,

The old station house is used now as a

Back on my walk I find Yarmouth

Without children the heart goes out of

built Yarmouth in the 12th century on a

youth com munity centre but the platform

a community and recently the primary

grid system that exists today and in 1135

is still there and a seat where I can sit

school in Yarmouth was threatened

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