Isle of Wight Facts
The Isle of Wight is trying desperately to shake off the 'bucket and spade' image for a far more upbeat and exciting one! The Island is so diverse in every way imaginable, it is a job to know where to begin telling you about the importance of this little lump of chalk ... which for the record has been separated from the Mainland for about 8,000 years (since the last ice age).
The Isle of Wight has a population of 136,250 people, well at the last census it did! The residents are scattered over an area of 380 sq. km, of which over half (51%) is designated as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, with a total of 70% given UK or European protected designation. Making their way across our landscape are 492 miles of roads, and 517 miles of footpaths, cycleways and bridleways. The Island is also home to 29 species of national concern as well as 205 species of local concern, we also have strong populations of internationally rare Great Crested Newts and Dormice. The Island is more commonly associated with red squirrels as it is one of the strong-holds for reds in the UK.
OK, so the Isle of Wight might not have the mountains of Nepal, the warm weather of Barbados, the wildlife of New Zealand, or the theme parks of Florida, but ... what it does have is something that is so great, it attracts over 2 million visitors every year, to over 380 attractions, hosting over 100 events ...
Many people have heard about the 'Pop festival of the 60s or 70s' but did you know that these have been revived?! Granted, Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix haven't been taking centre stage in recent years, but with acts such as Coldplay, The Rolling Stones, Police, Sex Pistols, Keane, Bryan Adams, The Who, Amy Winehouse, David Bowie, REM and Snow Patrol to name but a few who have played over the last 5 years, there is not a shortage of world class music acts! The Isle of Wight Festival is usually held in early June. The Bestival is although smaller, many would argue it is a more fun event with a true carnival atmosphere, held at the end of the season in September.
So we have world class music; the Island is so well known for world class sailing it is barely worth mentioning, but just in case ... Cowes Week is the only place to be during the first week of August and as any sailing calendar will show, on a world scale this is as good as it gets.
Scattered across the Isle of Wight are 203 scheduled monuments, 60 ancient monuments, 1910 listed buildings (31 of which are Grade I).
So there you have a tiny selection of facts ... world class sailing, a huge range of world class wildlife, heritage dating back several thousands of years, world class music ... so all in all, there is so much more to offer than a bucket and spade package!
And of course, Islander's are also proud of ourselves! Afterall, we can take credit for having the former homes of Lord Tennyson, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, Julia Cameron and many more. But did you know that the Island played an important part in the lives of those listed below (taken from the Isle of Wight Economic Partnership's webpage, www.iwep.com)
 | John “Earthquake” Milne (1850 – 1913) was the father of seismology. He invented the horizontal pendulum seismograph and set up the world’s first world centre for seismology in Shide |
| The Isle of Wight only became an Island 8000 years ago at the end of the last Ice Age |
| Sir Christopher Cockerell spent 2 years from 1959 inventing the hovercraft in East Cowes. It was built at Saunders Roe and launched on 31st May 1959 |
| Guglielmo Marconi moved to the Island in 1896 after the Italian post office refused to test his new wireless equipment. In 1897 he erected a 40 metre tower at Alum Bay and transmitted to Poole, nearly 20 miles away. |
| Barnes Wallace, inventor of the Bouncing Bomb, studied engineering on the Island, transferring his indentures to J Samuel White at Cowes in 1908. |
| Thrust 2, which broke the World Land Speed Record in 1983 at 633.468 mph was designed by John Ackroyd and built on the Island. |
| The family of Anthony Minghella, winner of Best Director oscar for The English Patient, own Minghella’s Ice Cream based here in Wootton. |
| Robert Hooke, born in Freshwater 1635, was not as well known as Newton or Wren, which is grossly unfair. He created Hooke’s Law – a spring’s length is directly proportional to the weight hanging from it – and correctly theorised that planetary motion is based on the principal of inertia and a balance between the outward centrifugal force and inward gravitational attraction of the sun. he also invented balance springs for watches and coined the scientific use for the word “cell”. So there! |
Some of the above information - the statistics mainly! - was taken from the IW Council document, Island Plan (c) 2005.
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