Isle of Wight News on Ventnor Blog

As we know, after many years of planning and negotiation, the Isle of Wight Council recently made the decision to cancel the Ryde Interchange.

The bible for Architects – The Architects’ Journal – has today published a piece with the reaction to the cancellation by the Architect of the site, Marks Barfield, who also designed the world-famous London Eye.

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A while back, the new Chair of the Ventnor Plans Committee, Cllr Brian Lucas, proposed a new award scheme to the Town Council.

To help encourage quality development, he thought it would be a great idea to have a scheme that recognised and acknowledged high quality renovations, refurbishment or new builds.

We reckon it’s a fantastic idea too and and can think of several properties we’d consider nominating immediately.

There have been some beautiful refurbs of Victorian properties as well as 1950s homes recently in the town and surrounding area.

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Regular readers will remember reading on VB last week about the Open Heritage Days planned in Ventnor at Alexandra Gardens and the Heritage Museum.

We’ve heard from John Allen, one of the residents of Alexandra Gardens, that the event was a huge success, not only for Alexandra Gardens but also the Ventnor Heritage Museum.

There was much buzz about the event beforehand. Alexandra Gardens was featured on the front cover of the national brochure for the event and on Thursday morning, Matt Treacy from Radio Solent was broadcasting live from Alexandra Gardens.

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Heritage fans don’t forget this that this coming weekend a number of properties around the Island will be open free of charge to the public.

Two properties in Alexandra Gardens (the private road just above the Winter Gardens), Ventnor will be open to the public between 2pm-5pm on Saturday and Sunday as part of the Heritage Open Days event.

Number 3, Bermuda House is of course well known as the property that famous composer Edwards Elgar spent his honeymoon at in 1889. Listen to a podcast with Andrew Neill, Chairman of the Elgar Society at the unveiling of an historical Blue Plaque at the property.

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Following on from our article yesterday on the launch of a new Website about the history of Alexandra Gardens, we’re pleased to hear that two of the properties in the road will be open to the public during the Open Heritage weekend.

Number 3 and Number 5 Alexandra Gardens are the only two houses on the road which remain as single unit dwellings.

On 12th and 13th September, as part of the English Heritage Open Heritage Days they join a number of other properties around the Island which will be open to the public free of charge.

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A few years back, ownership of Number 3 Alexandra Gardens changed hands and in the following year or so a great deal work went into renovating and restoring the property. The result is the return of a very grand looking building which is now rented out as holiday accommodation to enthusiastic visitors to Ventnor.

The man behind the renovation was John Allen. We first met John back in 2007 at the unveiling of a Blue Plaque at his property highlighting the fact that famous composer, Edward Elgar, had honeymooned there in 1889 (listen to the podcast).

John’s passion for the history of not only his property, but also the surrounding area, was clear and has been reinforced with the creation of a fascinating new historical Website about Alexandra Gardens. Ann and Paul Hutchins at the Windsor Carlton have worked tirelessly with John to create this fantastic new Website.

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Wow, check out this amazing piece of engineering we came across earlier this week.

Some of you may already be aware of this solution to connect two canals in Scotland.

The height difference between them was far too great for a standard lock so another solution had to be found.

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The Ventnor Winter Gardens has a fantastic team of volunteers who help out with all manner of things from running the box office, to preparing rooms for events and checking people into concerts.

Without their unpaid help, the Winter Gardens would financially be in a much worse condition.

At the moment the box office is manned between 12pm-2pm but Winter Gardens Management are finding that this is perhaps not long enough and potentially a barrier to people buying tickets.

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Last week, as part of the Great British Butterfly Hunt, the long-standing Environment Editor of The Independent, Michael McCarthy, made his first ever visit to the Isle of Wight.

We reckon from reading his latest opinion piece, that he’s probably wondering why it took him so long to discover our beautiful Isle.

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We haven’t had a chance to see it in person, but hear from VB readers that there are adverts in the property pages of the County Press this week for the sale of Ryde and Shanklin Theatres.

As we reported back in January, the Cabinet were to make a decision on the future of the theatres following an independent review on the commercial viability and public need for the theatres.

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Many readers will remember the case of Couthy Butts, the last remaining Georgian workers cottages on the Isle of Wight, which last year the Isle of Wight Council insisted be demolished.

A great number of you put pen to paper and voiced your objections to the demolition of the buildings. Despite losing their appeal to the Planning Committee in June last year, local farmers Sabrie and Brian Harvey have been fighting the enforcement ever since.

Appeal Withdrawn
Those who lodged their complaints will also have received an ominous letter a couple of weeks ago from the Planning Department stating that the appeal had been withdrawn.

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Michael Jennings, pain in the backside saga, entry #3938393.

We asked the question a couple of weeks ago whether the tide was turning in the planning department and from our dealings with Daniel Child, the new head of enforcement, it looks like it is.

Those who have followed the long running saga of Michael Jennings and his serial abuse of the planning system will know that last November the Planning Committee came down hard on Mr Jennings and his retrospective applications associated with St Joseph’s in Madeira Road.

Our biggest concern was the unauthorised roof garden that is now being used by the occupants.

First the Good News
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Update: Please read the following in the context of this

Islanders far and wide will be familiar with the Ventnor Winter Gardens, but how many people are aware that the building was designed as a homage to the classic De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill on Sea?

Bexhill’s fabulous art deco building, designed and built in 1935 by Erich Mendelsohn and Serge Chermayeff, was emulated just one year later in Ventnor by Island-based architect, A.D.Clare. That’s no joke.

VB has been told this very morning that Trustees of the De La Warr Pavilion have recently made a visit to the less than pristine Ventnor Winter Gardens and have voiced their concerns on the state of Ventnor’s architectural homage.

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Well done to everyone who voted for the Needles Old Battery in the Wickes Building with Pride competition that we’ve been featuring on VentnorBlog.

It was a pretty close shave, but Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire took the first place in the Wickes Building with Pride Competition.

The Old Battery grabbed 41% of the vote but Bletchley Park just nudged ahead with 45%.

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Many congrats to Helen and Frazer Cunningham of Vintage Vacations, who have once again brought media attention to the Isle of Wight via a review of The Mission Hall which appeared in The Guardian this weekend.

This spectacular renovation of a church meeting hall built in 1895 in Chale has gained much attention from the broadsheets over the past few months and is sure to continue to be as popular as more people discover the attention to detail in this wonderfully sympathetic restoration.

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Readers may remember the Wickes Building with Pride competition that we wrote about last week.

Well, organisers of the competition have advised us this morning that the Needles Battery building has made it onto the shortlist competing against 29 other buildings.

We now all have the chance to vote for the Needles Battery entry and could be in with a chance to ensure that the first ‘Building with Pride’ award comes to the Isle of Wight.

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Wickes who are, according to their PR firm, the UK’s favourite home improvement retailer, last week launched a nationwide search to establish which building deserves the accolade of ‘Building with Pride’.

They have teamed up with celebrity builder Tommy Walsh and Architectural Historian Malcolm Hislop to find the one building that the great British public would put their name to if they could.

It’d be great if some buildings on the Isle of Wight were voted in.

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Following hot on the heels of Vintage Vacations’ The Mission Hall being named one of the best places to stay over half term, we hear of another holiday offering on the Isle of Wight making it onto a ‘must-stay’ list.

The Lighthouse is the brainchild of Vanessa and Mark Wheeler, who also run the very popular Boathouse Restaurant and their other holiday accommodation, The Crow’s Nest – all nestled in the wonderfully idyllic Steephill Cove.

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Well done to Tina Nicholls for winning Isle of Wight Photographer of the Year award. Quite right too as the shot that won her the prize was a stunning capture of a staircase in Reykjavik.

The shot, ‘Stairway into Darkness,’ was captured at the Hilton Nordica Hotel in Reykjavik, Iceland’s capital, this August.

Tina told VentnorBlog that when she saw the staircase, her reaction was, “I’m having that staircase – that’s mine.” After a dash up nine flights of stairs, she saw what she needed to capture.

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As covered last week on VentnorBlog, Totland Pier was up for grabs at auction this morning.

Derek, owner of the pier tells us that the prospect of the pier being up for sale has raised a great deal of interest on and off the Island.

Lot 21 didn’t reach it’s reserve price at auction today and Derek is back in his studio this afternoon working on his latest artwork.

One of the comments raised from the podcast we did with Derek on Friday suggested a trust be set up to purchase the pier for community projects. If anyone is interested in pursuing this further, get in touch.

Image: Alpha Perry

Reported not only in the Island media, but also in the Nationals this week was news that the 450ft long, 128 year old Totland Pier is due to go to auction in Covent Garden with Barnard Marcus on Monday morning.

The pier is privately owned by artist Derek Barran, who has been there for nearly ten years now. We popped over to catch up with Derek yesterday afternoon just as the sun was setting behind the headland.

Those fortunate enough to have visited Derek’s studio at the end of the pier will agree that the place has a very magical feel to it.

Whether it’s down to being at the end of an historic Victorian pier or has more to do with to the eclectic collection of Derek’s work we’re not sure – but it’s certainly one of our most treasured locations on the Wight.

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Rev Graham Morris from St Catherine’s Church, Ventnor attended the Town Council Planning meeting tonight to inform the TC on future plans for the renovation of the church tower and surrounding churchyard.

He started by quashing the rumours that had been circulating throughout town (we hadn’t heard this one) that the tower was going to be demolished. Rev. Morris assured the meeting that this was far from the case. The current scaffolding and apron surrounding the tower had been constructed for safety purposes, following an incident whereby a very large piece of masonry had fallen from the tower missing a member of the church by inches.

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One thing that we’ve been thinking about for a while is taking a photo of every shop in Ventnor.

It would be literally be a snapshot of the town – a photographic record of a town that is undergoing transition.

We hadn’t found the time to do it – and frankly weren’t sure when we’d actually finding the opportunity.

Hurrah for the Ventnor2008 Group who have done exactly that and stuck them up on Flickr for everyone to see.

Each photo also explains the business that is currently using the shop.

Great to see people going out and doing something for the town.

As we reported on Monday, twenty or so local residents gathered opposite the Hazelhurst property in Freshwater to show their objection to the Ombudsman, as he made a site visit.

After waiting for some time for the architect to turn up, the Ombudsman came and spoke to the residents to advise that he would be carrying out a site visit. He stated that he had read all objections to the application and would be taking those into account.

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A group of around 20 members of the public stood opposite Hazelhurst in Freshwater this morning, peacefully donning placards as the Planning Ombudsman carried out a site visit.

Owners of the property, Mr and Mrs Knight claimed that they knew nothing of the visit and only realised something was up when Mr Knight noticed a group of people assembling on the other side of the road.

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