The 1912 Ward Lock guide to the Isle of Wight says of Ventnor: “The streets which run uphill from the sea are as higgledy-piggledy as well can be… the simplest way to go down to the sea is to go steadily down - where you can go steadily - till you come to it.”
Well, obviously Ward Lock didn’t think too much of Ventnor.
Perhaps their reviewer arrived there by train.
Ventnor had two railway stations in those days, Ventnor West and Ventnor.
Both were hopelessly situated, being miles away from the town centre, and as for a day at the beach, Ventnor town station could hardly have been further away.
It was actually perched some 300 feet above sea level, at the junction of Ocean View Road and Mitchell Avenue in what had once been a chalk quarry that in its heyday had provided the stone for many of Ventnor’s finer houses.
In 1866 it was chosen as the site for Ventnor’s first railway station.
Once upon a time Ventnor had its own bus and coach station. Here it is in its heyday in the late seventies. (Image: Brian Greening/County Press)
Today nearly every trace of the once sprawling station yard has disappeared under an industrial estate and the sole remaining feature is the entrance to the 1,300-yard-long tunnel that leads to Wroxall.
Still visible, it is now boarded up and houses a plant belonging to Southern Water.
It is difficult for us today to appreciate how life for Islanders was completely transformed by the railways.
The Portsmouth to London railway line had opened in 1859 and it meant that Islanders who could afford it were able to have The Times and fresh Whitstable oysters on their breakfast table by 9am.
The Ryde to Ventnor line proved the only profitable line on the Island, most of that profit coming from the Ryde to Shanklin section, which is the only line to survive today.
For 99 years, Ventnor station played an important part in the life of the town, but a competitor was waiting in the wings – the motor car - and by the 1950s and ‘60s it had won the day.
This is Ventnor Carnival in 1927, photographed by a County Press photographer. This is a scan from the original glass plate. (Image: Alan Stroud/County Press)
Most of the Island’s lines closed and for Ventnor station it all ended in tears at ten past ten, one Sunday night in April 1966, when the last ever train to Ryde pulled out for the last time.
Once upon a time Ventnor had a watermill.
It was in Pier Street roughly where the Winter Gardens is today.
Houses in Alexandra Gardens now sit on the site of the millpond which was fed by run-off water from St Boniface Down, the watercourse giving Spring Hill its name.
It provided water for Burts Brewery, and having filled the pond and driven the mill, the outflow cascaded over the cliffs before flowing into the sea.
In 1902 the stream was diverted to form a picturesque waterfall, running into an ornamental garden.
Ventnor seen from the sea, looking quite Mediterranean. (Image: Alan Stroud/County Press)
Today, the garden has gone, replaced by municipal concrete.
In a nod to the pretty pond that once stood in the garden, children can now play in a cement pond - in its centre, a concrete model of the Isle of Wight.
John Betjeman, national treasure, poet laureate and train enthusiast once travelled to Ventnor.
On September 1, 1950, he broadcast an account of his railway journey between Cowes and Ventnor West for home service listeners.
Here is an extract: “Far too few people on the Isle of Wight have the sense to go by its railways.
“These delicious lines wind through some of the best scenery of the Island.
“Oh, let me advise you, instead of sitting half asleep in the luxury coach with your arm round your girl, go by train.
“And of all the lines on the Isle of Wight, the fairest, the wildest, the most romantic is that which runs from Cowes to Ventnor West.
“It was by this line that I, almost the only passenger, first came to Ventnor.
“If the Southern Railway had any sense, it would put observation cars on this part of the line.
“We glide through meadows, past thatched farms then into the blackness of a tunnel - half a mile of it - and then we are out into the jungle of the Amazon, or so it seems.
“For here at St Lawrence Halt and all along the seacoast to Ventnor West station is luxurious undergrowth.
“And then here we are at Ventnor West, but not a sign of a town. The explanation is simple.
“Most of Ventnor is a park. It is all trees. Everything is beautiful, gardens public and private but it is also steps and zig-zag roads - for while most towns are horizontal, Ventnor is perpendicular.”
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