Isle of Wight

Cowes, on the northernmost tip of the island, is a yachting centre, and yacht races have been held there since the 18th century. Cowes Castle is the headquarters of the Royal Yacht Squadron (founded 1815), and it is from there that races are started. Regattas are held every weekend during the summer; the internationally famous Cowes Week takes place each August. The town is the starting point for two important biennial yacht races, the Fastnet Race and Admiral's Cup. Not far from Cowes is Osborne House, which was designed in the Italian style by Prince Albert as a summer home for Queen Victoria, who had pleasant childhood memories of the island. She spent much of her widowhood at Osborne, and the elaborately decorated rooms are filled with her possessions; her private apartments remain exactly as they were on her death in 1901. Osborne House was given to the nation by Edward VII, and is now administered by English Heritage.

Yarmouth Castle was built by Henry VIII, and Carisbrooke Castle is a Norman and Tudor castle standing just south of Newport. The National Trust owns Bembridge Windmill and the Old Town Hall in Newtown. Ryde has a long, flat beach, and an early Victorian pier, almost 1 km (0.5 mi) long. Bembridge has a natural harbour, much used by the owners of yachts and houseboats. Sandown houses the Dinosaur Isle, an innovative dinosaur museum and exhibition, the first of its kind in the United Kingdom; the museum, shaped like a pterosaur, opened in 2001 and contains an extensive collection of dinosaur fossils excavated on the island. Sandown Bay is wide and sheltered, and has good sands. The best known of the chines in the south is Blackgang Chine, said to be named after a gang of smugglers (smuggling was a way of life in the island for many centuries). It now contains a Fantasy Theme Park. To the south-east of the Needles, above Freshwater Bay, is Tennyson Down, with a monument to Alfred, Lord Tennyson, who lived nearby at Farringford. At Alum Bay, not far from the Needles, the rocks are of varied colours. They are friable, and it is traditional to scrape them into glass tubes in order to display the different colours of Alum Bay “sand”. Above the bay is the Needles Pleasure Park and the Old Battery, a Victorian fort. The Isle of Wight Steam Railway, using the trains that formerly served the island, runs between Havenstreet and Wootton. The island has many picturesque villages, pre-eminent among which, and extremely popular with sightseers, is Godshill.

Dairy farming and fruit and vegetable growing are of some importance. Fishing takes place from Bembridge; at Newtown, oysters and other shellfish are gathered. Crabs and lobsters are caught off the south coast.

Shipbuilding at Cowes is an old-established industry, and there are a number of companies involved in high-technology marine production (from hovercraft to passenger ferries). More than 2,000 people work in this industry, which produces an annual net product of approximately £100 million. There is a tradition of aircraft construction, and the Pilatus Britten-Norman Islander and Trilander aircraft were developed on the island. GKN Westland Aerospace is a major supplier to aircraft manufacturers, and one of the country's major suppliers of advanced composite and metallic structures. High-technology industries include the development of radar systems. However, most of the workforce is employed in the service sector, especially in tourism. Near Newport is Parkhurst Prison, one of the country's top security jails, which is also a source of employment. The island is served by passenger ferries and hovercraft, and by car ferries, which ply from Portsmouth to Ryde or Fishbourne, from Southampton to Cowes, and from Lymington to Yarmouth. An electric train service runs from Ryde to Shanklin, and there are also buses and taxis; services expand considerably in the summer.

Early inhabitants of the island were dinosaurs, some of whose fossilized bones have been discovered in recent times. Early Bronze Age settlements are known to have existed, but there are no remains of any significance. The future emperor Vespasian annexed Wight in ad 43, and traces of the Romans are to be found in the island, which they named Vectis. There are two Roman villas, one at Newport, and the other, of special interest because of its size and state of preservation, at Brading. The island was later settled by Jutes, and in 661 became part of Wessex. It was subsequently given to the king of Sussex. By 998 it had been adopted by the Danes as their headquarters. After the Norman Conquest, William I, the Conqueror, gave the island to William Fitz-Osborn, who was probably responsible for building Carisbrooke Castle. It later reverted to the Crown, but was granted by Henry I to Baldwin de Redvers, in whose family it remained until 1293, when Edward I bought it for 6,000 marks. During the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries, the Isle of Wight was constantly harried by the French. In 1377 they sacked and burned the towns of Yarmouth and Francheville on the western side of the island, and destroyed Newport so thoroughly that it was uninhabited for two years thereafter. Francheville was rebuilt, and renamed Newtown. A French landing force arrived in 1419, but was repulsed. In 1545 a large fleet of French ships came to the eastern side of the island, and launched an attack which resulted in considerable damage in the area of Brading, and as a result of this raid, a series of forts was built at Cowes, Yarmouth, Freshwater, and Sandown. During the English Civil War, the island strongly supported Parliament. Charles I was a prisoner in Carisbrooke Castle from 1647 to 1648; his children, the Princess Elizabeth (who died there) and the Duke of Gloucester, were also confined in the castle in 1650.