Newport, Isle of Wight

“ To return to Ryde or Newport over the downs from Brading, will be found exceedingly interesting to those strangers who delight in the contemplation of grand prospects, and a most fertile and well cultivated country:—having no objection at the same time to a hilly road as the price of their enjoyment, and which we call the most beautiful in the island. ”

“ He was a Privy Councillor and a widely-travelled man, while the objects of art he collected on his travels formed a costly museum. He died in 1805, childless, and the property passed to the Earl of Yarborough in right of his wife.
Carisbrooke is only a mile or so from the chief town of the island, Newport, though it must be added that Ryde claims the distinction of being the largest town. Newport has been said to "stand at that spot marked by Nature for the capital of the island, at the confluence of the two streams into which the estuary of the Medina is divided." ”

“ I know the castle; it is not two miles distant from Newport, and at Newport we can lie at the Bugle, which is an inn addicted to the contraband. The king's writ runs but lamely in the Channel Isles and Wight, and if we wear some other kit than this, maybe we shall find Newport as safe as St. Malo.'
This was just what I wanted, and so we settled there and then that we would get the Bonaventure to land us in the Isle of Wight instead of at St. Malo. Since man first walked upon this earth, a tale of buried treasure must have had a master-power to stir his blood, and mine was hotly stirred. ”

“ In short, nothing can exceed the gaiety of the scene, when the weather is at all fine: as it is made the occasion of a general festivity by the inhabitants—and resorted to as a holiday by great numbers from Newport, and the eastern parts of the island.
The Shore presents, when the tide is at its lowest ebb, a wide expanse of sand, stretching for miles both eastward and westward of the Pier, preserving upon an average the breadth of a mile: here and there interspersed with ledges of rock, and the banks beautifully feathered with groves and shrubberies. ”

“ A considerable village, about four miles from Chale, and five from Newport; it stands charmingly sheltered in a curve of the downs with a southern aspect; has a pretty church; and boasts of the finest old mansion in the island, called NORTHCOURT, built in the reign of James I. This venerable pile has lately been thoroughly repaired: a necessary operation by the bye that has stripped it for a few years of its greatest ornament—the rich drapery of ivy which invested its lofty gray walls and pinnacles: hills, clothed with hanging woods and plantations, rise boldly around it ”

“ On the eastern slope of the hill, where the high-road turns off for Newport, stands Westhill, a charming cottage-ornee in the centre of a smooth sloping lawn interspersed with magnificent elms and close shrubberies.—In the environs of Cowes are several other genteel residences: Moor-House is distinguished by its Gothic pinnacles and commanding station: and near Gurnard Bay is a pretty retired seat, appropriately called Wood-vale. ”

“ The facilities for getting about are good, for though in the northern part of the island the roads are sometimes a little rough, with stones not deeply enough set, they are always dry, being sandy; and west of Newport, and south, and also in the south-eastern corner, over quite three-quarters of the island in fact, they are excellent, dry, smooth, and firm. ”

“ The River (called the Medina, from dividing the island in the middle,) is navigable from Newport to Cowes for vessels of sixty or seventy tons burthen, during high water. The banks are beautifully dressed with scattered groves and copse-wood: and interspersed with the arable fields and meadows are several churches, seats, villas, farms, and cottages, on either side: and as the lands rise rather boldly, the while scene is viewed to advantage from the water, and will be found to afford a very delightful trip on a summer's day, to or from Cowes ”

“ SHIDE, half a mile to the south, is picturesquely seated at the foot of the steep and high down called Pan: the river Medina flows through the grounds, and there are several respectable villas in its immediate neighbourhood.
Westward is the NEW VILLAGE, a street of genteel and comfortable houses (some of which are furnished for lodgings,) leading to Carisbrooke: behind it is the hill called Montjoy's, from whose lofty summit is obtained the most comprehensive view of Newport, its river, and the adjacent country. There is also a small hamlet on Hunny-hill, north of the town. ”

“ The distance from Ventnor to Godshill is four miles:—and thence to Newport, six: the country is well-cultivated, but presents no object to call for particular notice: we pass the hamlet of Rookley: and the villas of Pidford and Standen.
WHITWELL is a very retired village, winding between Godshill and Niton: and having a church of some antiquity. ”

“ Thus, sculptured by Baron Marochetti, the tender [Pg 22] attitude in which death found her remains fixed in marble in Newport Church, where she was buried. Her little brother Henry was kept two years longer at Carisbrooke before being sent abroad to join the elder members of the family. He died of smallpox at the age of twenty. The children seem both to have been well treated during their imprisonment—a fact which is to the credit of the Parliamentarians. Among other prisoners the castle has held are two especially well known, Sir William Davenant and Sir Harry Vane. ”

“ As the houses stand well back from the shore, the space between is laid out in bright-hued parterres, that look like Persian carpets spread on the well-kept lawns. The eye at times fairly revels in sumptuous masses of color. Yet Newport was now deserted by the fashionable world, in the month of months, when sea and shore are incomparably enticing and satisfying. ”

“ Much that is best worth seeing in Newport is never seen by a majority of the people who visit the town during "the season." In the eighteen miles length and nine miles breadth of the island are many nooks and grottos unknown to those individuals who limit their expedition to the ocean drive, and the path across the beaches. Artists know these spots and linger in them. Lovers find them out somehow instinctively. ”

“ The population is as variable as the breezes that blow over the ocean, for Newport has gained fame the world over as one of America's most fashionable watering places. As early as 1830 it began to attract health seekers and others wishing a brief respite from toil in the unnumbered factories in the east, and the movement has continued until the section of the island adjacent to Newport is dotted all over with cottages. villas and cheerful, luxurious homes.
One is delighted to find well paved streets and a city that is withal sunny, gay, and full of color. ”

“ There is nothing grand, not even anything natural in Newport, but it is very pretty for all that. For an artificial place, destined to house the most artificial people in the world during three months of the year, it is as pleasing as it can be in a light-comedy-scenery style. ”

“ Newport, in fact, has been haunted by a sort of ill-luck. It has never been able to make the best of itself. There was a time when its harbour bade fair to rival the harbour of New York, and when its inhabitants fondly believed that all the great ships of the world would find refuge under the splendid shadow of Rhode Island. And when this hope was disappointed for ever, Newport still possessed in herself all the elements of beauty. Whatever exquisite colour and perfect situation could give, was hers. What more can the eyes of man desire than green lawns and an incomparable sea? ”

“ Newport is more charming even than you remember it; like everything else over here, it has improved. It is very exquisite today; it is, indeed, I think, in all the world, the only exquisite watering-place, for I detest the whole genus. The crowd has left it now, which makes it all the better, though plenty of talkers remain in these large, light, luxurious houses, which are planted with a kind of Dutch definiteness all over the green carpet of the cliff. ”

“ Baptists; for, under the mild fostering of Roger Williams, Newport has become a city of refuge to religious malcontents of every persuasion. All the population, however, is not of like sobriety. A “rage of finery” distinguishes the aristocracy of the island, and silk-stockinged gentlemen, with scarlet coats and swords, silver-buckled shoes and lace ruffles, may be seen in abundance, exchanging stately greetings with ladies in brocades and hoops, as they pass to and fro between the decorous gambrel-roofed houses or lift the brazen knockers of the street-doors. ”

“ And Nature herself has had pity on these stones for the mirth, the heroism, the misery they have encompassed: she has propped up the tottering ramparts with forests of tall trees in the courts, balustraded the dizzy heights with a sturdy, bushy growth of ivy, and firmly bound together all the crumbling decay with a centuries-old cording of vine-stems.
A mile from Carisbrooke village lies Newport, the modern capital of the island—modern in its relation to Carisbrooke, but possessing some traces that it was formerly of Roman occupation also. ”

“ NEWPORT. RHODE ISLAND.
The appearance of Newport is much less imposing, as approached by land, than when viewed from the noble harbour over which it looks. It consists of one long line of close-built, narrow streets running parallel with the water about the base of the steep hill, with many others climbing up its side. It is indifferently paved, and has a very light soil; so that upon the least land-breeze the lower town is filled with the dust, which is blown about in clouds. ”

“ The principal public buildings are the spacious Victoria Hall, the Albert Hall, the town-hall, county council offices, market-house, custom-house, and museum and art gallery. Newport owes a rapid increase in importance to its situation on a deep and spacious tidal river, which renders it a convenient outlet for the trade of a rich mineral district. It has extensive docks and wharves, to which large steamers have access at all tides. Three docks, the Alexandra, South and Old Docks, had together a water area of about 60 acres, besides the Alexandra graving dock and dry docks. ”

“ There is, I think, a far more intimate fondness between Newport and its frequenters than that which in most American watering-places consecrates the somewhat mechanical relation between the visitors and the visited. This relation here is for the most part slightly sentimental. I am very far from professing a cynical contempt for the gaieties and vanities of Newport life: they are, as a spectacle, extremely amusing; they are full of a certain warmth of social colour which charms alike the eye and the fancy; they are worth observing, if only to conclude against them ”

“ Turn where you will in Newport, all is beauty. If you weary of the finish and elegance of these beautiful villas, there is the rocky shore, [Pg 216] where the sea dashes with tireless vigor; or you can contemplate the bay that lies sparkling in the sunlight; or you can walk or ride in the many lovely roads which give wonderfully beautiful glimpses of both, and are as much "country" in their leafy and quiet seclusion, as if Fashion were exiled to the North Pole, instead of the distance of a mile of so. Then, if you are book-y, there are the well-stocked libraries of the place ”

“ The White Mountains have always retained their clientele composed for the most part of people to whom the seclusion and pure air ministered rather to the carrying on of their studious pursuits than to the abandonment of them. Newport came to have a formidable rival in Bar Harbour. ”

“ All the world has heard of Newport in Rhode Island as being the Brighton, and Tenby, and Scarborough of New England. And the glory of Newport is by no means confined to New England, but is shared by New York and Washington, and in ordinary years by the extreme South. It is the habit of Americans to go to some watering place every summer,—that is, to some place either of sea water or of inland waters. This is done much in England; more in Ireland than in England; but, I think, more in the States than even in Ireland. ”

“ During the revolution 8,000 British and Hessian troops were quartered on the town, and its commercial interests have never recovered from the injury which they inflicted. They destroyed 480 houses, robbed the library, then the finest except one in America, burned the shipping, cut down all the groves and orchards for fuel, and carried off the town records. Before this period Newport had been a favorite resort of men of science and letters, and was noted for the opulence and refinement of its inhabitants. ”

“ But shuddering refinement and bland recognition alike withdraw into themselves as far as broad lawns and lofty terraces permit them to retire, leaving to the owner of Fisherman's Rights the enjoyment of ocher and umber rocks and sea and sky and grain-fields yellowing on far headlands.
It gave me the nearest thing to glee I ever felt in Newport. It was bracing and open and free. It suggested comparisons with scrambles along Nova-Scotian shores or tramps on the moors in Scotland. I often hated the fine weather ”

“ But of all such summer haunts, Newport is supposed to be in many ways the most captivating. In the first place it is certainly the most fashionable, and in the next place it is said to be the most beautiful. ”

“ So many others dispute their precedence, or at least attract attention and patronage away from them, that none of them enjoys anything approaching a monopoly nor concentrates so much of the national wealth and fashion as to make it imposing like Brighton, or finished and attractive like Wiesbaden. Newport, perhaps, is as charming a resort, and as magnificently built up, according to the number of its summer population, as any in the world ”