The Isle of Wight

SHANKLIN CHINE. The picturesque ravine carved by a small stream on the south side of the town.

Beautiful Britain
By
G·E·Mitton
A & C Black Ltd 45 & 6 Soho Square London W



Islands have always exercised a peculiar fascination over Englishmen, perhaps because, accustomed as they are to a sense of security induced by the surrounding sea, they never feel more comfortable than when the sea is on all sides at a measurable distance. It has been the ambition of many an Englishman to possess an island, however small, of his own. But England is not particularly blessed in this matter, and we may look with envy at the fringe of islands, large and small, precipitous and flat, scattered along the rugged shores of the west coast of Scotland. The only two English islands which can claim exceptional interest are the Isle of Man and the Isle of Wight. Of the other well-known ones, the Scilly Isles and Channel Isles are too inaccessible to count, Sheppey and Thanet and Holy Island too small, and Anglesea is separated by so very diminutive a channel from the mainland that it hardly seems like an island at all.