Sandown; Saturday, 14 September, 2024

After breakfast in the hotel I headed over to the nearest bus stop to catch the bus a couple of stop back towards Ryde to the neighbouring town of Brading to visit one of the islands most important archaeological sites.

The stereotype of the Isle of Wight is that it’s stuck in the 50’s. What they don’t expand on is that in parts of Brading that’s the 150s when the palatial villa found in the town was at it’s prime. Originally constructed around 100AD, shortly after the Romans successfully took control of the island, naming it Vectis. Some time after 500AD the villa fell into ruin and then disappeared under centuries of forestry and coppicing, but that meant the ground wasn’t being ploughed up regularly which helped preserve the ruins until they were uncovered again in the late 19th century and today they are a spectacular set of ruins with several very well kept mosaics.

I spent quite a bit of time looking round the site, before stopping for a late morning tea and scone in the museum café. Once refreshed I headed out of the museum for a quick walk up onto the downs.

The Brading Down Lookout Point is less than 500m from the ruins of the villa, unfortunately it’s also about 90m above it and the route up onto the high ground requires a slightly longer walk as the path snakes up the side of the down, though the stiff walk was well worth it for the stunning views out over Sandown and the other Downs of the island.

I spent quite a bit of time up on the Down, so long in fact that the easiest way down was to wait another 10 minutes and hop on the Downs Breezer the next time it went past so I did just that catching it back round to Ryde, hopping off there for a quick lunch in the 25 minute break before the bus next headed out, making sure I was back in time to do one full uninterrupted circuit of the route.

Back in Ryde I did a bit more exploring of the island, though this time there was no sightseeing bus available, instead using local buses – where I managed to bag the top deck front seat each time – I first headed over to the north of the island and Cowes, arriving in East Cowes and using the floating bridge – a chain ferry – to cross over to the main part of the town to have a look around.

From Cowes I caught the bus back down into the capital of the island – Newport, where I was able to change onto the bus heading back to Sandown via the long way – through the pretty seaside town of Ventnor that nestles down below steep cliffs that require the bus to zig zag it’s way down and then back round to Shanklin and then onto Sandown.

I had originally planned to get off at Shanklin and walk back into Sandown along the seafront, but I’d forgotten that it’s September and by the time we reached Shanklin it was already getting dark and I’d not brought a jacket so I decided just to stay on the bus and get off in Sandown instead.

From the bus stop I had a bit of a wander through downtown Sandown before heading back to the hotel to grab a bite to eat in the restaurant and then have an early night.