Descriptive Gazetteer Entry for BEMBRIDGE

BEMBRIDGE, a village and a chapelry in Brading parish, Isle of Wight. The village stands on the E side of Brading harbour, 2½ miles ENE of Brading. It has a post office under Ryde, and is a coastguard station. It rose from obscurity about 1826; acquired some handsome houses and a hotel; and made strong claims to become a fashionable watering-place; but has not met so much favour as its situation and other advantages deserve. The chapelry was constituted in 1827. Acres, not separately returned. Real property, £3,788. Pop., 783. Houses, 179. The tract of 2½ miles by 1 ½, between Brading harbour and the Channel, bears the name of Isle of Bembridge; and the termination of it on the NE is called Bembridge Point. A ridge of hill, across its neck, called Bembridge Down, has an altitude of 355 feet, commands a very gorgeous view, was the scene of a rebuff of the French in 1546, and is crowned by a granite obelisk, 70 feet high, erected in 1849 to the memory of the late Lord Yarborough. The rocks present a fine study to the geologist; and lignite, fuller's earth, and red ochre are found. The Bembridge ledge, and other ledges run off from the E coast into shoals; and the Bembridge floating lights are situated to the ENE, and show two lights 18 and 25 feet above deck and 43 feet apart. A railway, 2 miles long, was authorised, in 1864, to be formed from Yar Bridge to Bembridge Point, with pier and landing-place. The living is a p. curacy in the diocese of Winchester. Value, £100.* Patron, the Vicar of Brading. The church was built in 1845, and is in the early English style.


(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: Bembridge CP/Ch       Brading AP/CP       Hampshire AncC
Place: Bembridge

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