Freshwater

Isle of Wight

Page 3

Old postcards are sometimes poorly produced and grainy, I've done my best to scan them. Please click thumbnails for full size picture.

Dates are from the card or my estimate (where possible). The maker of the card is shown in brackets (where available).

Described as 'a Rustic Scene' near Farringford. This is in ' The Mall'

Gate Lane outside Thorntons (formerly Woolf and Geer). Orchards

store is in the background. Probably from the 1930's (Nigh)

Orchards Stores in 1906, ss well as a grocery store, there was also a bakery and the Freshwater Bay Post Office. The grocers still remains but the bakery closed, and the Post Office moved a few yards down the road (toward the Bay) to Woolf and Geer (now Thorntons). (National)

On the left of the store is Tennyson Lane, which leads towards Tennyson Down and Monument.


Tennyson Lane looking towards Orchards, around 1910. (Gubbins)	Entitled 'A pond in Tennyson Lane', undated. (Sweetman)

Taking the left fork at Orchards takes us along Bedbury Lane, just past the entrance to Farringford we find Farringford Cottage, this card is from about 1910.	Farringford Farm, Just off Bedbury Lane, 1906 (National)

The Downs to the West of Freshwater are known as Tennyson Down, after the Victorian poet who lived at Farringford House nearby. A monument on the top of the downs commemorates him.

Tennyson Down

The Tennyson Cross stands on the spot formerly occupied by the Nodes Beacon. It is of Cornish Granite, and nearly thirty eight feet high. The inscription on the east face runs:

" In Memory of ALFRED LORD TENNYSON this cross is raised, A Beacon to Sailors, By the People of Freshwater and other Friends in England and America"

The monument was unveiled on July 8, 1897. On fair days and foul Tennyson was accustomed to make a daily pilgrimage to this spot, declaring that "the air on the Downs was worth sixpence a pint" He would sit for hours gazing out to sea, his big, black, broad rimmed hat and his military cloak wrapped around the tall, bent form, making him a picturesque figure familiar to everyone in the vicinity of his beloved home."

Ward Lock guide, about 1928

An early (pre 1914) view of Tennysons monument.

Was the figure meant to be Tennyson?

Tennysons monument from the cliffs, card is captioned

'Tennysons Gift to the nation'. Probably around 1920.

Farringford Page

Continuing along Victoria Road from Orchards we pass what used to be the Osborne private hotel, now a block of flats and we come to Simmons corner. This is named after the drapery shop which use to trade here.

Simmons Corner when the drapery store was run by Kempster and Sons. They subsequently moved to School Green Road in the centre of the village. The premises are now a private residence. (Picture from More Memories of the West Wight by the Eric Toogood)

A few hundred yards further and we reach the Parish Hall. Opposite

this is Camp Road, where there was a pub, the Star Inn.

This closed during the 60's and is now a private house.

Turning left along Stroud Green Road we reach the Co-op Supermarket, which is built on the site of the old Freshwater station.


The outside of the station in about 1890.	An undated picture of the inside of the the station.

For further pictures of the station site then and now see Freshwater station page

Freshwater Village

Freshwater (Church and Causeway)

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15 March 2008