this bay leads into the Landslip, so called par excellence, as the rawest and wildest disturbance of the Undercliff, its last fall being not yet a century old. This wilderness of overgrown knolls and hillocks, tumbled from the crags above, is not to be equalled on our south coast unless by the similar chaos near Lyme Regis, whose broken and bosky charms have been stirred into fresh picturesqueness by slips of more recent date. Over daisied turf one here takes a twisting path that leads by banks of bracken and bramble into thickets of gnarled thorn and other blossoming shade, half-burying green mounds and grey boulders in a tangle where one would soon lose oneself but for occasional glimpses of the sea below, or for running upon the wall of a private enclosure behind, guide for the wanderer in his descent towards Luccombe Chine, who can also ascend to the cliff-walk for Shanklin. The scene is thus described by Thomas Webster, a geologist who visited it a century ago, while the first convulsion was still fresh, before the last slip of 1818 came to make confusion worse confounded.
A considerable portion of the cliff had fallen down, strewing the whole of the ground between it and the sea with its ruins; huge masses of solid rock started up amidst heaps of smaller fragments; whilst immense quantities of loose marl, mixed with stones, and even the soil above with the wheat still growing on it, filled up the spaces between, and formed hills of rubbish which are scarcely accessible. Nothing had resisted the force of the falling rocks. Trees were levelled with the ground, and many lay half buried in the ruins. The streams were choked up, and pools of water were formed in many places. Whatever road or path formerly existed through this place had been effaced; and with some difficulty I passed over this avalanche, which extended many hundred yards. Proceeding eastwards, the whole of the soil seemed to have been moved, and was filled with chasms and bushes lying in every direction. The intricate and rugged path became gradually less distinct, and soon divided into mere sheep tracks, leading into an almost impenetrable thicket. I perceived, however, on my left hand, the lofty wall of rock which belonged to the same stratum as the Undercliff, softened in its rugged character by the foliage which grew in its fissures, and still preserving some remains of its former picturesque beauty. Neglect, and the unfortunate accident which had lately happened, had now altered the features of this once delightful spot; and I was soon bewildered among rocks, streams of water, tangling thorns, and briars.
The labyrinth between Luccombe and Bonchurch was not the only landslip in modern times; and though there is believed to be little fear of any further serious disturbance, occasional falls of rock are a warning how this gracious ruin of nature might be renewed. The Landslip here[3] makes to my mind the bouquet of the whole Undercliff, whose similar features, on an ampler scale, of older wrinkles, and usually more veiled by the work of man, stretch for miles westward along a rugged platform varying up to half a mile in width. Words but feebly paint the charms of a miniature Riviera, its broken land-waves foaming into groves, gardens, and tangles of shrubbery. Between the wall of downs and cliff-buttresses shutting it in to the north, and the sea dashing at its foot, the foliage runs as rank as in a giant’s greenhouse, beautifully
displayed by the accidents of the irregularly sloping ground.
Crags, knolls, and mounds confusedly hurl’d,
The fragments of an earlier world.
This line of cliffs may indeed remind us of the Trossachs, with one side opened out to the sun and a richer vegetation at its base. Hawthorns, elders, and other bushes grow here to a huge height, dappling the green of the woods with their blossoms. Myrtle and other semi-tropical plants flourish hardily; everywhere there are flowers prodigal as weeds, notably the red Valerian flourishing on walls and broken edges. Huge boulders are half hidden in ivy, heaps of old ruins are buried in almost impassable thickets. It is hard to say when the huge bank of greenery is most beautiful—whether in spring with all its blossoms and tender buds; or in summer wearing its full glory of leafage; or again in autumn brilliant with changing tints and spangled by bright berries: even in winter there are evergreens enough to make us forget the cold winds banished from this cosy nook. The one blot on such a paradise seems the many notices to trespassers, warning that its most tempting nooks are “private,” or the still more ominous placards of “valuable building land to let on lease.”
The Bonchurch Landslip must be traversed on foot. On the other side of Ventnor, a good road winds up and down beneath the inland heights, from the edge of which one better sees how many houses and gardens are hidden away here in their own greenery. Other aspects are presented from a path rising and falling along the broken cliffs of the shore. The road, in fine weather, will be astir with coaches, brakes, and other wheels making for Blackgang Chine, that renowned goal of excursions from all over the Island. Beyond Steephill Castle, it leads through St Lawrence, the western, as Bonchurch is the eastern wing of Ventnor.
St Lawrence, known to guide-books that used to pass Ventnor Cove without a word, has another of the smallest churches in England, now replaced by a new one. The old church, till slightly enlarged by Lord Yarborough, measured twenty feet by twelve under a roof which must have obliged a tall knight to doff his helmet. Its saint, like St Boniface, gave his name to a well now enclosed under a Gothic arch. But the great institution of the parish, standing in a long terrace by the roadside, is the Hospital for Consumption, which Ventnor people insist on as being at St Lawrence, just as Woking pushes off the honour of the Brookwood Cemetery. There was a time when this model hospital made an advertisement for Ventnor; now new notions as to germ-infection tend to scare away more profitable guests than its patients, who might be expected to fall off under new theories of treatment for consumption, but the building has had a recent addition in memory of Prince Henry of Battenberg.