In 1870-72, John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales described Sandown like this:
SANDOWN, a village and a chapelry in Brading parish, Isle of Wight. The village stands on a bay of itsown name, adjacent to the Isle of Wight railway, 5½ miles S of Ryde; is properly called Sandham; occupies asite, formerly a rough uncultivated common, called Royal Heath; had no existence so late as 1810; was afterwards, for some time, a very small fishing hamlet, with untenanted neighbouring barracks; rose rapidly to the status of a bright and cheerful watering-place; and now has a post-office, ‡ designated Sandown, Isle of Wight, a r. ...
station with telegraph, excellent hotels, good lodging-houses, a fine bathing beach, hot and cold baths, a church, fourdissenting chapels, and very fine schools. The church was built in 1845; is in plain early English style, withsmall tower and broach spire; and was enlarged in 1861. The barracks, in the S neighbourhood, were erected during the time of the great war with France; and had subsequent northward extensions, which were taken downafter the close of the war. A block-house was erected on the N E, about 1538; suffered irretrievable injury frominroads of the sea, which destroyed hundreds of surrounding acres of land; and was succeeded, in the time of Charles I., on a new site, by a quadrangular fort, with abastion at each angle, and surrounded by a wet fosse. S.bay is an encurvature of 5½ miles along the chord, from Culver cliff, south-south-westward, to Dunnose; and isflanked, in the neighbourhood of the village, by a lowtract of greensand and Wealden clay, called S. Level. The chapelry was constituted in 1847. Pop. in 1861, 1, 743. Houses, 348. The living is a p. curacy in the diocese of Winchester. Value, not reported. Patron, the Church Patronage Society.
Sandown through time
Sandown is now part of the Isle of Wight district. Click here for graphs and data of how the Isle of Wight has changed over two centuries. For statistics about Sandown itself, go to Units and Statistics.
GB Historical GIS / University of Portsmouth, History of Sandown, in The the Isle of Wight and Hampshire | Map and description, A Vision of Britain through Time.
URL: https://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/559
Date accessed: 20th April 2024
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