UK's BEST Seaside Towns (Ventnor, Isle of Wight)
Ventnor, Isle of Wight
A freshly grilled bacon sandwich on the top deck of the ferry heralded my childhood holidays to the Isle of Wight. Zipped up in cagoules as the wind gusted around us, my brother and I had tasted nothing finer. Our destination was Ventnor, a seaside town with everything a six-year-old could desire: a huge paddling pool with a 3D map of the island rising from its centre, a muddyish beach to splash about on, and bags of chips to eat as my feet dangled from a deckchair.
They’ve stopped serving bacon sandwiches on the top deck of the Red Funnel, but pretty much everything in Ventnor is reassuringly the same. The hairpin bends of the Cascade Road – actual name Shore Hill, which pitches visitors into the Victorian seaside town – still slaloms past colourful municipal bedding and steadfast granite villas. Much of the architecture survives from Ventnor’s 19th-century heyday as a health resort, and original bathing machines (without wheels) are now available to hire as beach huts.
Chips are still the snack of choice at Haven Fishery on The Esplanade, although these days they are accompanied with inventive crab options (samosas, croquettes). A 20-minute walk along the seafront takes you now, as then, to the subtropical Botanical Gardens, a safe place to get lost in, much like Ventnor itself.
Stay National Trust cottage Little Chert is an annex to a modernist house in St Lawrence, about a mile to the south. It’s furnished in 1970s style – the orange Formica kitchen is a highlight – and sleeps two from £323 for three nights.
Clare Gogerty, author of The National Trust Book of the Coast, and National Trust guides to the Tin Coast, Gower Peninsula and Brownsea Island
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