life
ISLAND HISTORY
one of the subscribers who contributed to
the cost of the building as the new church
spire would serve as a seamark to sailing
vessels. The spire was originally topped
with a weathervane but in 1865 a cross was
installed containing three bells which could
be operated by levers to sound different
variations of a simple tune.
Unfortunately, after the church was built
there were structural problems and it had
to be demolished. It’s been suggested that
the cause might have been the blue slipper
clay under the foundations but in 1846
a new church was built and dedicated to
The Holy Trinity. A lych gate was added
to the entrance of the churchyard in 1897
in memory of a Mrs. Anne Brenden and in
1887, when the village churchyard became
full, St. Luke’s chapel was opened at Lane
End.
Music was always important at Holy
Trinity and in its early days, the church
had a basic barrel organ to accompany
the congregation’s singing. At the time
of Queen Victoria’s Jubilee, a Foster and
Andrews organ was installed with the
queen’s organist, Mr. Sca dden, coming to
play it on December 29th, 1887. The organ
is still in use today after being rebuilt and
refurbished in 2006.
Afterwards I went down Kings Road to
Bembridge Point. Now that the blue and
red brick railway station, the tollgate and
the Spithead Hotel have disappeared, I felt
nostalgic for the days when the train came
puffing into the station and we watched it
being pulled round on a turntable for the
38
return journey. But on 21st September,
1953, the last train ran from Brading and the
Bembridge line closed.
The ‘Pilot Boat Inn’, modelled on the bows
of a pilot boat in the 1930s, has survived.
It was a favourite with the engine drivers
and firemen in the good old days when the
station master would ring a bell to warn
them that the train was leaving in five
minutes.
The Royal Spithead Hotel, built in 1882
and “considered to be a good hotel”, was the
headquarters of the Royal Isle of Wight Golf
Club but in 1989 the hotel was demolished
and rebuilt as a modern housing complex.
Today, the drinking fountain and horse
trough nearby built as a memorial to the
Reverend Jones Nelson Palmer looks sad
and neglected.
Bembridge Point just oozes with history
right back to the time when the French
landed a party of soldiers and burned the
village before they were repelled by the
Island Militia. A cannon was kept at the
Point in Nelson’s time and whoever spotted
a press gang coming to haul young men off,
would nip down and fire the cannon to warn
them.
A house near the old Pilot Boat Inn
had access to a hiding place through the
chimney, small enough to hold a man if
he could stand the heat when a fire was
lit to put any searchers off the scent. But
the Navy needed men to man the ships
and villagers often found themselves press
ganged to serve aboard ships.
The days when the Fleet was anchored at
St. Helen’s Roads were prosperous ones
for the village because of the demand for
locally killed bullock, mutton, poultry, eggs,
and beer and the ‘sweet water’ from the
spring Under Tyne, known to stay fresh in
barrels for long periods at sea.
Captain Ernest Du Boulay writes that the
Moreton family started “a commodious
horse boat” at the Point, bringing horses
and carriages across from the Ferry Inn on
the Duver. Associated with the Point is the
Old Anthony ghost story but there’s another
story about a Mr. Samuel Rhino who came
to the Island and took the ferry from St.
Helen’s to Bembridge. He was joined by a
gentleman in black who sat next to him on
the boat but when they reached the middle
of the stream, the mysterious stranger
disappeared. When asked, the boatman
said no one knew who he was but he never
paid his fare. The next morning Mr. Rhino
packed his bags and returned to London.
After several attempts, the Brading
Haven was finally reclaimed in 1878 and
a seawall was built at the harbour. After
the construction of a small pier next to
Bembridge Sailing Club, a daily passenger
service started during the summer months
with the paddle steamers Tynemouth, Island
Queen and Bembridge sailing between
Portsmouth and Bembridge. Bembridge
Sailing Club was founded in 1886 by Du
Boulay and Colonel Moreton and is the
home of the famous Redwings, the oldest
surviving keel boat class in Great Britian.
Lady Augusta Fane describes them as
“sloop-rigged boats which are easily sailed
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