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misslisterkeepsajournal · 3 years

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1831 Friday 7 October

6 55/.. 10 25/..

Fahrenheit 67°. and fine sunny but windy morning now at 7 35/.. - breakfast at 7 55/.. - pretty damp little place - au 1re [premiere] in front - but ruz de chanssée at the back - single house - the 2 windows opposite each other shewed the inequality of the ground - pretty rustic verandah in front and windows opening on to the ground -

Off from Freshwater gate Inn at 8 40/.. very steep up the down - all walked - I took George and close along the edge of the cliffs and walked 40 mins. [minutes] before we turned inland to the top of the down and the carriage came up with us - the white Freshwater cliffs (white and high and precipitous) are certainly very fine, but not so fine as the Dover cliffs - sea very rough - wind very high - had it been to the sea instead of from it, there would have been no walking on the seaward declivity of the down -

Drove along the open down as far as just turning down upon the little scattered village of Brook - left a little below us (right) at 9 50/.. a good looking brick house inhabited by Mr. Howe, Lord of the manor, and there seemed to be a few straw thatched cottages - all the village that we saw - at Mottiston at 10 - neat brick farmstead and 5 or 6 straw thatched cottages and a picturesque wood? steepled little old church -

At Brightstone or Brixton at 10 1/4 - very scattered pretty straw thatched well-gardened village - stopt at the neat yellow-white washed Inn to water the horse at 10 20/.. - neat little church just beyond the Inn, and a few neat cottages for small gentry? there seemed a neat good brick Squire's house at a little distance (left) a little out of the centre of the village - far the prettiest village we have yet seen, and really pretty - walked round the little churchyard and off again at 10 1/2 - the coast seems low from Brook to some distance beyond Brixton - St. Catherine's hill, the highest land in the island stretches finely ahead of us like a long barrier against our getting any much farther - the preventive watch tower and the light house look like 2 great gate posts as we rise the ground out of Brixton -

At 10 40/.. Westcourt a large brick gable ended ivy covered house, and Shorwell picturesque good little village with neat little old church - alight at the neat little old church of Chale at 11 3/4, and, leaving the carriage to go over St. Catherine's hill and thro' the village of Niton, took George and a young woman guide and turned down the cliffs and to Blackgang chine at 12 - merely a little cove or circular hollow in the black indurated clayey cliff - the little stream or ripple that falls from the top lost in rain before it gets to the bottom, tho' the depth it falls may be 60 or 70 feet Brannon's guide says 70 feet (the girls father says 55 feet) instead of 500 feet according to one of my guide books - really Blackgang chine is no great thing - but taking the whole height of the cliff to the top of St. Catherine's hill above the broad shelf or undercliff in which the chine is worn (and the water only runs over the chine) the height cannot be above 500 feet if so much - for it is not the highest part of the hill that is over the chine - Brannon mentions Chale and walpan chines as partaking of the character of Blackgang chine - Chale the girl said was nothing not near so big as Blackgang and walpan above a 1/4 mile to the westward quite out of our way and we must go along the sands to see it, and the water was too high and the sea too rough to admit that - besides the cliff was lately so fallen away the chine was nearly destroyed -

Blackgang Chine c1910, the chine has since been destroyed due to erosion [Image Source]

We then walked along the cliffs to the aluminous-chalybéate spring called Sandrock spring - really a pretty strong chalybéate [according to Wikipedia: “waters, also known as ferruginous waters, are mineral spring waters containing salts of iron”] and plenty of the water - the present building over it quite new - the old one fell away last winter by the slipping of the cliff - then to the neat little cottage above the spring (a sort of dispensary) just under the Sandrock cliff - would not live there - there may be another land-slip as in 1799 - the Sandrock cliff begins a very little to the westward of this Sandrock spring cottage - the cliff very curious - in their horizontal strata where rooks and ravens, sea gulls, and falcon-hawks build their nests - fine, sea views - a little too hazy for the peep of Portland race from the point between Knoles and Buddle's farm -

We passed along there and came out upon Sandrock hotel at 1 - very pretty 2 story house with rustic jasmine and ivy covered verandah along the ground story, windows opening on to the ground - the house too on an eminence with very fine sea view - the prettiest hotel I ever saw anywhere - my Leghorn bonnet hat being all blown out of shape - my false hair taken off and put into the crown of my Leghorn - the driver having gone at once to the stables, and neither of my servants being in sight I can imagine the people wondered what I might be - I did not think them civil enough - looked about - wrote my pencil notes and walked off - went down to the stables to speak about the road etc. wanted a guide - the ostler would recommend a boy (who it turned out was his own son and I afterwards had him to a little beyond Mirables cottage, but he wanted me to pay the ostler, and I would have nothing to do with paying ostlers, so walked off - and at a little distance some neat little Lodging houses, and a few good comfortable cottages -

The village of Niton 1/4 mile off - but not worth going so much out there and back out of my way, so took the boy and walked forwards along the undercliff carriage road - soon came to the Orchard general Sir Willoughby Gordon - approached by a sunk road about 4 feet high rough large stone walling and top-planted slopes above - (there would be something of this sort on entering trough of bolland wood to Shibden) - the house a modern gothic 2 story high with a small castle tower or 2 quite in a hole - invisible till quite upon it - would not live there for all the island - but must look prettily upon the sea from the other side and may have pretty little grounds like Mirables, Mrs. Arnold's very pretty cottage which we soon afterwards turned down to see - she being gone out, a man we found in the grounds shewed us over them (very pretty - bowers of magnificent ivy growing over old shrubs and scraps of wall), and the neat little dairy, and the house too - really a cottage - some of the rooms surely not more than 7 feet high - very very low - but verandahs, and ivy covered covered windows and gables, and really very pretty - but no such cottage for me to live in - give me loftier and larger rooms - more elbow and more breathing room -

Sent back the boy a little beyond Mirables, and sauntered on (Cameron and George and I) by ourselves - just peeped in at the windows of the very small church of St. Lawrence not more than 20 feet long by 12 broad probably the smallest church in England - and the carriage over took us at 3 about a mile from Ventnor, and we all got in - Steep hill at 3 1/4 - we all walked up the hill -

St. Lawrence Old Church - built in the 12th century and considered the smallest church in England until a 10 foot chancel was added in 1842 [Source]

Ventnor hotel at 3 23/.. - a neat, new, remarkably comfortable tidy-looking house, 2 storys, the lower 8 windows in front the 4 lower opening upon the ground - the house on high enough ground - not much wood about it - but beautifully diversified hill and down, and very picturesque pretty little scattered hamlet - the curious sandrock cliff seems to end at Ventnor, and a very high steep down to fence off the more irregular sloping undercliff - horse tired - so that we do not get on very fast - at 3 40/.. St. Boniface cottage (left) very pretty straw thatched gentlemans cottage - from here go down a steepish hill into a deep beautiful finely wooded dell or valley and come out upon the pretty little village of Bonchurch at 4 -

Go into the little church which Andrews (large guide page 96) thinks one of the oldest in the island or in England 'the entrance of the church is a beautiful and perfect Saxon arch; the portico is clearly of Norman architecture, being added after the conquest' - the church is not much larger than that of St. Lawrence - from this church walked the land slip (another land slip, a sort of chaos prettily and picturesquely planted with forest copse wood) to Luccomb chine which was shewn us by the proprietor of one 1/2 of it who happened to be standing by - has a neat little cottage (Luccomb chine cottage) 2 little sitting rooms and 2 bedrooms and 2 servants ditto and little kitchen stable and barn for coach house and a nice little pretty garden at the head of the chine with private way down it to the sea, - that he would let for 20/. a week now, and lets in the season for 50/. a week - season from May to now - but bad carriage road to it thro' the farm yard of a farm belonging to Mr. Atherly M.P. for Southampton - the front door of the cottage opens into Mr. A-'s [Atherly's] property that is entailed and cannot be sold - the man calculates his cottage at £22 a year has above 20 acres land with it and some cottages that altogether bring in above £40 a year and would sell the whole for £1200 - all these cottages too poky and stuffy for me - the Chine merely a pretty cleft in the cliffs down to the beach, - green and pretty well wooded - but really these Chines do not deserve to be made much fuss about - they are convenient passages to the sea - a sort of large Lord Bute's gaps as at Highcliff - the chine a mile from Shanklin -

Luccombe chine in 2008 [Image Source]

Walked up the hill to meet our car - could not find it - walked to Shanklin there at 5 20/.. and the carriage not being arrived had to send after it - the very pretty Inn quite full - but Mrs. Williams very civil and got me a little lodging near - very comfortable - very pretty picturesque village - a good deal taken with it - could not resist going down to see the chine - a pretty wooded glen - prettier than Luccomb because topped by the neat gable ended white house of general Viney, and a pretty little bay and good sands below - fine hard sandy clayey cliffs shut in the bay - the winding down to it in traverses is pretty, and altogether Shanklin is a pretty little -

Met a couple of men who had been digging up sand eels - bought the whole lot of one of them (2 or 3 score, I think at least) for 6d. [pence] - gave him 6d. [pence] additional and he took them to the Inn and I ordered them for supper - back at 5 50/.. 2 basins (above 1 1/2 pint) of boiled milk but ate merely a mouthful of bread at 6 - then settled accounts and began this journal of today - at 7 my sand eels ate 5 or 6 and 20, and drank as much boiled milk as before with about as much bread and then finished journal of today -

The 5 miles walk from Sandrock hotel to Vintnor along the undercliff is really very fine the perpendicular wall of sandrock cliff left - the sea right - the gentlemens cottages and grounds - the finely varied prettily wooded and undulating undercliff, form a charming whole - once or twice looking only at the Sandrock cliff and the planting along I was reminded (a very miniature likeness) of the Gorge d'ortessa - but altogether, sea and all, I doubt if there are many finer walks in England or anywhere than these 5 miles of undercliff - the chaos from between Bonchurch and Luccomb chine and the copse wood among it reminded me for a moment (miniature likeness) of some of the tremendous chaos on descending the Splugen towards Chiavenna -

Gorge d’Ordesa in the Ordesa y Monteperdido National Park, Spain [Image Source]

We met a Lady and gentleman at Bonchurch just returned from the chine of whom I inquired the way - the lady's ecstasies about the beauty of the wood leading to it - never saw anything so beautiful - I should be well repaid etc. etc. made me think how well it is to enlarge on ideas and accomplish one faculty of admiration by sights on ampler scale than we can have at home - very fine day - had just finished the above of today at 9 10/.. - came to my room at 9 35/.. - Fahrenheit 69°. now at 9 50/.. -

[Margin] From Ventnor to Bonchurch very pretty especially from Bonchurch cottage thro' the wooded valley -

Reference: SH:7/ML/E/14/0129 - SH:7/ML/E/14/0130

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