INTERVIEW
life
Photo: Dunsbury Farm
Being part of the landscape
The Seely family have etched their mark on the Isle of
Wight for the past 150 years. Patrick Seely tells Roz
Whistance what the Island means to him
“NO, don’t look till you’re at the top!” says
Patrick Seely. There, laid out before us is a
stunning microcosm of what makes the Isle
of Wight beautiful. We can see the coast
of Ventnor right through to the white cliffs
of Freshwater; the Needles, but also the
meandering coil of the Yar; and linking it all
are the rolling hills, which from this vantage
point seem higher and more majestic than
they do from the road.
What we’re actually looking at is the map
of Patrick’s family history. The land the Seely
family once owned, and do no longer. The
phrase “better to have loved and lost”
springs to mind.
For it was love which brought the Seelys
to the Isle of Wight – love of this place, this
view. “At least that’s the family story,” says
Article by Roz Whistance
Patrick. They are relative newcomers to the
Island, in that their family only goes back
150-odd years. But they have certainly made
their mark. Patrick and his wife Susannah
now farm the famous Dunsbury lambs.
The Seely estate once ran from Freshwater
Bay golf course, all the way through Brook
Down, which is what we are standing on,
through Mottistone Down to the top of
Strawberry Lane.
“My family history is the perfect example
of Victorian entrepreneurship: of coming
from a certain point, making a lot of money,
and within three generations losing it all.
That’s what happened.”
Patrick’s great-great-grandfather, Charles
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Seely, inherited his father’s milling business
in Lincoln. As a young man, a severe illness
caused Charles to be sent to the Isle of
Wight to recover, staying in Ventnor. One
day he walked from there to the Needles,
and so profoundly was he struck by what he
saw that, so the family story goes, he said:
“When I’m older I shall own this land.”
Charles became a canny businessman. In
the 1840s he bought a farm in Nottingham,
which happened to sit on top of the
Nottingham/Derby coal field. So jus B0