With the sad news of the passing of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, we explore her connections to the Island and the impact she made during visits here across her 70 years of reign.
Her Majesty The Queen visited the Isle of Wight several times during her long reign, with her first official visit to the Island being in 1965. During this visit, Her Majesty took in several Island towns, including Ryde, Sandown, Shanklin, and Yarmouth, after arriving in Newport by barge. Thousands of wellwishers took to the streets to catch a glimpse of the monarch.
The Queen had come to the Island to install Earl Louis Mountbatten of Burma, Admiral of the Fleet, as Governor of the Isle of Wight at a ceremony at Carisbrooke Castle. Whilst on the Island, she took time to visit the former officers’ convalescent home at Osborne.
The late monarch made a short stop at the Royal Victoria Yacht Club at Fishbourne. She then left for Ventnor, where she planted a fir tree at the eastern end of Ventnor Park, before proceeding to Ventnor Winter Gardens. From there, she continued to Shanklin, where she learned more about PLUTO (the Pipeline Under The Ocean), which was vital for the Normandy D-Day landings.
After being driven to Cowes, where she stopped in at the Royal Yacht Squadron, Her Majesty spent the night aboard the Royal Yacht Britannia before setting sail for Yarmouth the following day. In Yarmouth, she went walkabout and met the Yarmouth Lifeboat crew.
The Royal party returned to the mainland via hovercraft – which reportedly broke down with an oil leak and she was taken back to the Britannia on a naval launch.
Her next visit came in August 1968, when she visited during Cowes Week to inspect the newly-built Seaspeed Hovercraft Terminal in Cowes and the British Hovercraft Corporation factory in East Cowes, where she inspected the SR. N4 Mountbatten class hovercraft under construction.
In 1987, Her Majesty once again arrived on the Isle of Wight, this time to open St Thomas’ Heritage Centre in Ryde. A commemorative plaque was unveiled to mark the occasion, alongside the Bicentennial of the sailing of the First Fleet to Australia.
Queen Elizabeth visited the Island once more in 2004, arriving with her husband the Duke of Edinburgh at Seaclose Park in Newport by helicopter. On this occasion, she visited Beaulieu House respite care centre for children with disabilities to officially open the centre and meet parents and children. She also travelled to Havenstreet to ride on the steam railway with 6 Island children. The royal couple conducted a walkabout from St Thomas’s Square, Newport, where they met with hundreds of royal well-wishers and visited stalls at the local farmers ‘market.
Her Majesty returned once more to the Isle of Wight as part of her Diamond Jubilee tour in 2012. On that occasion, she visited the new Cowes RNLI Lifeboat Station and took in a performance by primary school children in Cowes of a song especially written for her by local music teacher Becky Bevan.
Isle of Wight Michelin-starred chef, Robert Thompson, handed the Royal Party a hamper of Isle of Wight produce, with Timothy Harris of Isle of Wight Studio Glass presenting Her Majesty with a commemorative glass bowl.
The visit gave the opportunity for The Queen to express her thanks to the people of the Island for their loyalty and was to be her last visit to the Island.
It is also believed that the late monarch made several further unofficial visits to the Island while staying on board the Royal Yacht Britannia during Cowes Week, an event in which her husband Prince Phillip was a regular visitor and competitor.
I remember her visit to the Island in 1965.
I went with my neighbour Barry Southwell and we were around 6 years old.
I guess we went with our mums but what I do know we stood on the left hand side of Marlbourgh road in Ryde to await the Queen’s passing by.
I naively assumed she would be walking.
Clearly she didn’t and as the black large car appeared Barry become so excited he turned to be sick in a hedge and missed it all
The country will be much poorer without her.
It wasn,t 1987 that she opened the heritage centre in Ryde, it was ten years earlier
I was on Ryde beach in 1965 waving my flag at the age of 4. I remember the white podium but had no idea who it was at the time.