Opposite you across the road to your right is a castellated house, called Castle House built in 1842 by Samuel William Ridley, a floor cloth manufacturer. It has fine views over Bembridge Harbour.
The Castle has fine views over Bembridge Harbour. Castle House was purchased by Sir Harry Baldwin in 1902. A sale catalogue of 1899 describe the grounds as having been “laid out by a skilled Landscape Gardener about the year 1866″. The catalogue mentions fine oak, elm and other forest trees, flower gardens, tennis and other lawns, ornamental trees and shrubs, orchards, a kitchen garden and peach house. In 1899 the Castle House estate comprised more than 16 acres.
There was a kitchen garden to the west of the house, a circular Rose garden to the north, lawned terraces, a tennis lawn and a fernery.
There was a paddock, a conservatory, a peach house, greenhouse and summer houses. Sir Harry Baldwin became dentist to Queen Victoria in 1896, making her some false teeth, but better known is his work in oral surgery and facial reconstruction of men who suffered horrific injuries in World War 1. During the twentieth century the estate was gradually split up, but has recently found new owners who have purchased various cottages and parcels of land and are returning The Castle
and its gardens to their former glory.
Previous
Next