Isle of Wight Heritage

82 years ago today, during the height of World War II, shocked Isle of Wight lorry driver Harold Blow was amazed to be flagged down by a German Luftwaffe airman in military uniform on Bowcombe Road. He was even more...

Queen Victoria was using textspeak ahead of her time – such as ‘q’ for queen – and may have penned a letter while tipsy, it has been revealed. A rich haul of Royal finds connected to the monarch – all...

The location of the old priory house at Appuldurcombe near Wroxall has been a mystery for 300 years, until now... Chris Gardner, a communications manager come historian, has waded into a data lake - a centralised raw data storage repository...

Island Echo examines the myths, legends and history surrounding the iconic standing stones located above the hamlet of Mottistone. The Longstone gives its name its name to the nearby hamlet, which is a combination of moot (Anglo Saxon meeting place)...

On this day in 1888, a 40ft-long whale prevented the departure of the passenger steamer Bembridge - bound for Portsmouth - from Seaview as reported by Reynolds Newspaper. The vessel was followed by the whale, which kept close to the...

Captain Edward Smith On this day in 1911, the White Star Liner Olympic - sister ship to the Titanic and the most gigantic vessel then afloat - crashed into the warship HMS Hawke in the Solent off Ryde. The Olympic...

In the second in our series of Isle of Wight villains, Island Echo looks at the curious case of Dorothy O'Grady, who ran a boarding house in Sandown and was the only woman ever to have been sentenced to death...

On this day in 1743, a vessel carrying crew members suffering from the plague came close to transmitting the deadly disease to the inhabitants of the Isle of Wight. The Island had taken great care that the 18th-century pandemic was...

On this day in 1866, Ventnor lad William H Whitewood waded out to sea to retrieve a bottle he had seen floating on the waves, which contained a tragic and mysterious message... The cap and neck of the bottle were...

As part of the Secret Isle of Wight series, Island Echo looks at King's Quay - one of the most remote and inaccessible locations on the Isle of Wight - and the legends surrounding it. King's Quay, on the Barton...