Descriptive Gazetteer Entry for SANDOWN

SANDOWN, a village and a chapelry in Brading parish, Isle of Wight. The village stands on a bay of itsown name, adjacent to the Isle of Wight railway, 5½ miles S of Ryde; is properly called Sandham; occupies asite, formerly a rough uncultivated common, called Royal Heath; had no existence so late as 1810; was afterwards, for some time, a very small fishing hamlet, with untenanted neighbouring barracks; rose rapidly to the status of a bright and cheerful watering-place; and now has a post-office, ‡ designated Sandown, Isle of Wight, a r. station with telegraph, excellent hotels, good lodging-houses, a fine bathing beach, hot and cold baths, a church, fourdissenting chapels, and very fine schools. The church was built in 1845; is in plain early English style, withsmall tower and broach spire; and was enlarged in 1861. The barracks, in the S neighbourhood, were erected during the time of the great war with France; and had subsequent northward extensions, which were taken downafter the close of the war. A block-house was erected on the N E, about 1538; suffered irretrievable injury frominroads of the sea, which destroyed hundreds of surrounding acres of land; and was succeeded, in the time of Charles I., on a new site, by a quadrangular fort, with abastion at each angle, and surrounded by a wet fosse. S.bay is an encurvature of 5½ miles along the chord, from Culver cliff, south-south-westward, to Dunnose; and isflanked, in the neighbourhood of the village, by a lowtract of greensand and Wealden clay, called S. Level. The chapelry was constituted in 1847. Pop. in 1861, 1, 743. Houses, 348. The living is a p. curacy in the diocese of Winchester. Value, not reported. Patron, the Church Patronage Society.


(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))

Linked entities:
Feature Description: "a village and a chapelry"   (ADL Feature Type: "populated places")
Administrative units: Brading AP/CP       Hampshire AncC
Place: Sandown

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