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It has glorious cliffs
where many famous men have loved to walk. Lewis Carroll would spend long
holidays here. Darwin loved it as much as any place he knew by the sea. John
Wilkes built a house here which he called his "Villakin;" there is a
memorial plaque on the site of it at the corner of the High Street. On
Sunday mornings John Wilkes would go to Shanklin church, and after the
service would walk across the fields to Knighton with David Garrick and his
wife. Sir Isaac Pitman is said to have worked on his system of shorthand
here.
There are delightful
gardens on the cliffs between Sandown and Shanklin, beautiful with rockeries
and flowerbeds, and a wide view over the bay which runs from the gleaming
white walls of Culver Cliff, rising 250 feet out of the sea, to the sunburnt
cliffs on the way to Dunnose.
Sandown has no ancient
church, but its 19th century church has a west doorway built in Norman
style; it was put here in memory of Sir Henry Oglander, the last of the
family which came over with the Conqueror and was part of the life of the
Isle of Wight until Sir Henry died in 1874. They would be great people in
the island when Sandown Castle was built by Henry VIII. It was second in
importance only to Carisbrooke, but the sea destroyed it and Charles I
rebuilt it. It was demolished in 1864 and the stones were used for the
present fort. Not many minutes walk away are the remains of a building 1000
years older, for we are within easy reach of the famous Roman villa at
Brading.
At the public library in
High Street is the Museum of Isle of Wight Geology with mammoth teeth and
fossils found locally.
Text courtesy of:
Southern Life (UK)
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