Thursday, October 6, 1831 Travel Journal

1831

October

Thursday 6

Breakfast at 9 1/4 to 10 5/.. Went to bookseller’s shop – Good collection prints (50 plus) 40/.

Off at 11 20/.. Raining then and all the morning, but not very much –

Albany barracks, 14th regiment – 1 story high – House of industry little farther on opposite side (left).  Newport at 12 1/4.  5 minutes in the pretty good, regularly built town –

Bugle pretty good looking – Dun – Good town hall with Ionic portico, 4 outside columns and 6 or 8 at the sides – Market underneath the entrance gate of the time of Edward

At Carisbrook Caresbrook Castle at 12 35/.. till 1 20/..– The 2 round towers on each the entrance perfect – Then down thro' through the town – old Gothic Church – The tower old, with staircase up little tower at one corner – Up the hill out of the town –

Lord Malmesbury governor of the castle £1200 a year – and a lieutenant governor 20/. a day – A farm of 3 or 400 acres belonging to it – Finest view of castle from hill above the town going to Freshwater gate and Alum bay –

Saw the little wainscotted room Elizabeth (2nd daughter) Stuart died in.  She is buried at Newport – Coffin discovered 30 years ago – Lord Boltton, the late governor, lived there and laid out great deal of money – Thought of making gallery from one of the room windows to the keep tower, that is the window Charles attempted to escape by.  3 iron bars in each light –

Too little wood all along – Swainston park woods a little relief –

At 2 1/2, water the horse at Calbourn, merely a neat little Inn, and a neat cottage or 2 – or farm house –

At Freshwater gate at 3 35/.. – Reading 1/4 hour – Then saw the Cowes close here – a fine arch – no great interest – a sheep laying in one of them that had tumbled down the cliff and been washed in –

Took George and off to the Lighthouse at 4 – 3 miles over the down – There in an hour – 10 lights – burn 500 gallons oil a year – In winter, lamps trimmed every 3 hours, £50 a year, and coals found – and no house rent to pay.

35 minutes seeing Alum Bay and Scratchell’s Bay, where the birds build the needles and Needles Point – saw 2 or 3 black cormorants – like a thin black crow with long thickish necks –

Home – 8 minutes under the hour at 6 27/.. – Very high wind but fine all the way – Fair ever since about 1 1/4 – Rainy morning till then –

Freshwater Gate Inn very neat, pretty 2 story rustic verandahed house 1 1/2 mile from the village, standing almost alone – a nice enough little Inn, not so good as this 3/4 from Alum Bay

 Margin: Fine view from the tower – well covered over 300 feet deep – well between 210 feet and the water  and 10 feet of water – The present ass 3 or 4 years old much trouble in teaching – Saw lamp let down.

 

WYAS Finding Number SH/ML/TR/11/0014