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  • Isle of Wight Trip – Day 4 (Old St. Helen’s Church on the Duver)

    This was an interesting sight, the old St. Helen’s Church of which now only the tower remains. There has been a church here since the early eighth century, although the original wooden building was destroyed during a Danish raid in 998.

    The new stone church was built in the early twelfth century and the tower was added in the thirteenth century. The church was used by the Benedictines, but it started to fall out of use in the early fifteenth century and well before the Dissolution of the Monasteries.

    The church came into the ownership of Eton College in 1440 and they owned it until 1799, but they didn’t bother to maintain it. This meant that chunks of it fell down and the locals pinched the stone. Other pieces of the stone, namely the sandstone, were taken by sailors who used the holy stones to scour and whiten the decks.

    After a while of the stones being pinched the decision was made to demolish what was left, other than the tower. The tower was instead painted white, which it remains today, by the British Navy in 1719 and used as a navigational aid. A new church was built inland in the eighteenth century and was also given the dedication of St. Helen’s.

    Today the church remains bricked up and the entrances are sealed with iron grilles to prevent any access. It’s easily noticeable along the coastline and at least the tower has remained for future generations.

     

  • Aerochk Concept

    I like this concept, which is replacing the traditional security set-up with an escalator which performs the same service.

    The Aerochk press release says:

    “When travelers arrive at the airport, rather than waiting in a separate security line, they would just walk towards the nearest Aerochk on their way to their boarding gate. Passengers would place their passport on the left side of the machine and their luggage on the right. Allowing passport , the traveller and his luggage to be checked simultaneously.”

    Now, this concept seems marvellous, but having gone through airport security hundreds of times the best systems get delays because of confused passengers.

    Passengers who don’t remove trays so that the system gets clogged up, passengers taking two litre bottles of water through security and those who forget you can’t take knives.

    I can just imagine how the system would get backed up and passengers who would try to walk down the escalator. But I still like it, I think my need for constant movement would be satisfied with a system like this.

    It’s just a concept though and I can’t imagine it’ll be introduced, but it’s a reminder of how clunky the current separate systems of baggage, security and border protection actually are.

  • Isle of Wight Trip – Day 6 (Tram Line on Ryde Pier)

    There are three parallel structures which run to the end of Ryde Pier, one takes the railway, another takes the road and pedestrian walkway and the final one is the remains of the old tram line. Some of the tram line structure was demolished when the service fell out of use, although it has been used as a temporary walkway when the main walkway needed to be restored.

    The tramway, as indicated above, ran along the pier from 29 August 1864 until 26 January 1969. Initially the tram was powered by horses, then steam and then finally it was transferred to an electric system. The tram was designed to maximise capacity and there was a driver’s carriage at only one end, meaning it had to be reversed back along the line.

    Although one of the tram carriages was kept after the service ended, the storage conditions were poor and it’s in quite a state. The island’s steam railway has a project to bring the carriage back into use, but as they note, the carriage was designed to maximise capacity and not comfort, making it a problem for today’s health and safety requirements.

    Although the tram carriage itself is likely to be brought back into use once it’s restored, there are no plans to reinstate the former track along the pier. The condition of this is poor and I can only begin to imagine how much it would cost to bring it back into use. However, at least there is a train service in operation, so there remains a public transport option on what must be one of the few trains to operate along a pier in Europe.

  • Isle of Wight Trip – Day 4 (More Photos)

    More photos from day 4 of the Isle of Wight adventure.

  • Isle of Wight Trip – Day 5 (More Photos)

    And photos from day five of our walking expedition around the Isle of Wight.

  • Isle of Wight Trip – Day 6 (More Photos)

    And some more photos from day six of our walking around the Isle of Wight adventure.

  • Isle of Wight Trip – Day 6 (Cowes Floating Bridge)

    I don’t think that I’ve been on a chain ferry before, even though there is apparently one at Reedham. This service runs between East Cowes and West Cowes, with the journey time being just a couple of minutes.

    The information board showing the current list of charges to cross the River Medina on the ferry. There’s a ticket machine to buy tickets, although there’s also a ticket inspector who can sell tickets and they accept cash or cards. There’s no option to buy just a single ticket, as they’re sold as returns.

    The ferry after all of the cars and pedestrians had crossed. We got on at this point to travel from East Cowes to West Cowes. There was a rowing boat service offered between the two towns from the early eighteenth century until 1859, when a steamboat service was introduced.

    The current chain ferry is the sixth one to ply the waters, with the fifth one being withdrawn from service in January 2017 after forty years of service. The new ferry operates from around 05:00 until just after 00:00 and it carries around 1.5 million pedestrians per year and around 400,000 vehicles.

    Looking at a newspaper article from 1930 there were 1.4 million pedestrian crossings, so the number of people needing to use the service hasn’t changed. As there are no other crossings over the River Medina, the alternative is to go down via Newport, which adds around thirty minutes to a car journey.

    There’s a pedestrian area on two levels as well as the facility to carry twenty cars. There’s some seating available, although since the journey is so short, there are no other facilities.

    The ferry landing in West Cowes. We took this ferry as part of our coastal walk around the Isle of Wight, so it presented an interesting and intriguing way to end our walk back into West Cowes from where we had started.

  • Isle of Wight Trip – Day 6 (Statistics)

    This was the third Hike Norfolk long distance walking challenge, the first was in Hadrian’s Wall in 2017 and the second was the Ridgeway in 2018. The Isle of Wight Coastal path was shorter at 65 miles and the terrain was flatter, but we did do extra distances due to walking to hotels, restaurants and the occasional historical walking tour…..

    Due to the slight ridiculously habit some of us have of not using any baggage transfer services, I’ve always recorded whether they were supported or unsupported completions of the path. Not that it matters, the main thing is getting round the path or just enjoying the taking part   🙂   There are never any last places in long distance walking (well there are, but not on these trips).

    UNSUPPORTED COMPLETIONS

    Gordon, Bev, Susanna, Julian and Liam

    SUPPORTED COMPLETIONS OR PART DISTANCES

    Susan, Clive, Ross, Richard, Katherine

  • Isle of Wight Trip – Day 6 (Final Awards)

    Although for the first time in ages we didn’t get round to actually having a formal announcement of these during the walk itself, these were the awards that were made. Congratulations to the award winners from this trip   🙂

     

    BRAVEST MALE OF THE WEEK OTHER THAN JULIAN

    Clive

    BRAVEST FEMALE OF THE WEEK

    Susanna

    BRAVEST PERSON OF THE WEEK OTHER THAN JULIAN

    Clive

    BEST IMPRESSION OF THE WEEK

    Gordon

    BEST LOCAL KNOWLEDGE OF THE ISLE OF WIGHT

    Katherine

    MOST EXPENSIVE FERRY CROSSING OF THE WEEK

    Richard

    PERSON WHO HAS LEFT THE MOST STUFF IN HOTEL ROOMS

    Ross

    BEST TROUSERS OF THE WEEK

    Gordon

    BEST SUPPORT TEAM OF THE WEEK

    Katherine’s Parents

  • Isle of Wight Trip – Day 6 (Ryde to East Cowes)

    And the journey is now over, we completed the last section of the walk from Ryde to East Cowes which was a distance of just eight miles.

    The breakfast at the Royal Esplanade Hotel was better than I expected, although overall I’d be unlikely to stay at the hotel again. There are though plenty of hotel options in Ryde and it’s one of the cheaper places to stay on the island.

    The first side expedition of the day was to Ryde Pier Head, which is the first train line that I’ve seen which runs for the entire length of a pier. There are three separate structures which go down to the end of the pier, the structure carrying the train line, the structure carrying the pedestrians and cars and the abandoned structure which once carried trams.

    There’s a small display at the end of the pier about the history of the railway network on the Isle of Wight, now sadly much depleted from its former state. Someone shouted a few things at Richard about his shirt, which caused much hilarity, and then it was back to the hotel to start the walk properly.

    The first substantial stop was at Quarr Abbey which is an early twentieth century monastery of some considerable architectural interest. There is also an old abbey, of which we saw the remains, but this was destroyed during the Dissolution of the Monasteries and much of the stone sent to Cowes and Yarmouth to use in their fortifications.

    There wasn’t a great deal of coast walking today as most of it was inland. There was a bit more road walking than was ideal, a total contrast to the open spaces on the southern parts of the island. We walked into East Cowes and had a late lunch at the Prince of Wales pub, a former hostelry used by the coachmen of Queen Victoria.

    From there it was the excitement of using the chain ferry to get from East Cowes into West Cowes, a strangely enjoyable final section of the coastal journey. From there it was a short walk back into the centre of West Cowes and we had completed the entire coast path.

    The evening meal was at the appropriately named Coast Bar, where the pizza was marvellous and the service engaging. With everyone tired from their exertions that is now the end of the trip. Well done to every single person who took part and thanks for their forbearance.