From the bottom of Shanklin Chine, when the tide is out, one can follow the coast round the fissured crags of Dunnose, on which a cliff-walk is always open. Thus is reached Luccombe Chine, a modestly retiring scene, not so easily found, since there is no charge for admission; but well worth finding. Beyond this one enters the tangled wilderness of the Landslip, through which winds a path for Bonchurch. But here we come within the purlieus of Ventnor, and round to the “Back of the Island.”
From the heights at this corner, one looks down upon the scene of one of the saddest of naval disasters in our day, recorded in churchyards that show the tombs of so many young lives. Off Dunnose was lost, in 1878, the training ship Eurydice, with her company of hearty and hopeful lads. I well remember how that Sunday afternoon the March wind blustered on the northern heights of London. But under the lee of the Undercliff, the homeward bound sailors hailed it as a favouring breeze; then with ports open and under all plain canvas, the Eurydice spanked on round Dunnose, passing out of shelter of the Downs, to be taken aback by a snow squall, that threw her on her beam-ends before the men could shorten sail. Many of them must have been drowned as they rushed to struggle up on deck, from which others were swept away, blinded by the snow, or drawn down in the vortex of the sinking vessel. Three or four came to be picked up, an hour later, by a passing collier, and only two lived to tell the amazement of their sudden wreck, whose victims had much the same fate as those of the Royal George.
Gone in a moment! hurried headlong down
From light and hope to darkness and despair!
Plunged into utter night without renown,
Bereft of all—home, country, earth, and air—
Without a warning, yea, without a prayer!
THE UNDERCLIFF
The “Back of the Island” is a familiar name given locally to the south coast, its eastern end more widely famed as the Undercliff. All this side is marked by sterner features and sharper outlines than the shallow creeks and flats of the northern shore; and through its geological history the Undercliff makes a peculiar exhibition of picturesqueness, while by its winter climate it is one of England’s most favoured nooks.
Here a narrow strip of shore lies for miles walled in to the north by a steep bank several hundred feet high, sometimes presenting a rugged face of sandstone cliff, elsewhere rising in the turf swell of chalk downs. But the bastions of rock thus displayed rest upon a treacherous foundation of gault clay, expressively known as the “Blue slipper,” which, saturated with water, has given way so as to cause repeated landslides and falls of the super-incumbent strata, tumbling the lower slopes into a broken chaos of terraces and knolls, dotted with boulders of chalk and sandstone. This ruin of nature has long been overgrown by rich greenery, mantling its asperities, all the more since the charms and mildness of the situation go to making it a much trimmed wilderness, populated with villages and villas that turn the Undercliff into one great garden of choice and luxuriant vegetation.
The capital of the Undercliff is Ventnor, whose dependencies and outposts straggle almost all along this sheltered coast-strip. Now the most beautifully placed and the most widely admired town in the Island, it has risen to such note within the memory of men still living. A century ago Sir H. Englefield gives it a word as “a neat hamlet,” while guide-books of his day do not even name it between the older villages of St Lawrence and Bonchurch, that on either side wing its body of terraces and zigzag streets. Its history seems illustrated in the old “Crab and Lobster” Inn, from a modest haunt of fishermen developed into a spacious hotel, and still more plainly in the monuments of so many a young life close packed about its nineteenth century churches. It was Sir James Clarke, an esteemed physician of our great-grandfathers’ day, who dubbed Ventnor an English Madeira, and brought it into medical repute as a rival of Torquay, both of them disputing the honour of having the mildest winter climate in England, which probably belongs rather to the Cornish coast, or to other claimants still wanting a vates sacer, that is, a London doctor to give them bold advertisement.
The shift in medical opinion as to the cure of consumption by pure and dry air, however cold, must have somewhat blown upon Ventnor’s reputation; and it may in future come to depend upon its amenities as much as on the soft climate, now that Mentone itself seems rather shy of its old character as a rendezvous for consumptive germs. It has a summer as well as a winter season; but there is not much to be said for its bathing and boating, the shore here being rougher than on the east side, and exposed to dangerous currents. The beach before the esplanade has been tamed a little and brought under the yoke of bathing machines. Further along there are here and there tempting strips of sand; but swimmers may be cautioned as to launching forth too trustfully. The same hint applies to boating, this coast being best navigated with the help of someone who knows its reefs and eddies. Ventnor visitors are more ready to make jaunts on land than by sea; and in fine weather their favourite amusement is supplied by the coaches, brakes, and other vehicles which carry them to all parts of the Island. There are daily excursions in the season to Freshwater, Cowes, and other remote points; besides morning and afternoon trips to Blackgang, Shanklin, and such nearer goals; and the stranger will have much ado to deny the insinuating recruiters who at every corner of the High Street lie in wait to enlist him for their crew of pleasure-seekers.
The strong point of the town is its picturesque site, which, indeed, implies the defects of its qualities, having been termed “fit for kangaroos” by some short-winded critic. Nature never meant herself here to be laid out in streets, and eligible plots of building land have to be taken as they can be found on the steep slope. This fact, however favourable to scenic effect, proves a little trying to those feeble folk who make so large a part of the population. Communication with the different levels of the town, where the climate varies according to their degree of elevation and protection, has to be effected by steep stairs, winding ascents, and devious roads; and often one’s goal seems provokingly near, while it turns out to be tiresomely far by the only available access. One thoroughfare is so precipitous that a railing has been provided for the aid of those risking its descent. The twisting High Street debouches into a hollow, prettily laid out, about which are the most sheltered parts of the town. Here stands the pier with its shelters and pavilion; and a short esplanade curves round the little bay to a rocky point, from which other zigzags remount to the higher quarters. There has been a proposal to extend this esplanade along the Bonchurch side of the shore, where the gasworks certainly do not form a very pleasant or convenient obstruction; but on the whole it appears better to leave Ventnor as it is. Its great charm consists of being as unlike as possible to the general type of seaside resorts; and its irregular architecture, wilful roads, and provoking impasses are at least in harmony with each other.