Freshwater IOW (GB)
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Freshwater is a large village and civil parish at the western end of the Isle of Wight, England. The southern, coastal part of the village is Freshwater Bay, named for the adjacent small cove. Freshwater sits at the western end of the region known as the Back of the Wight or the West Wight, a popular tourist area.
Freshwater is close to steep chalk cliffs. It was the birthplace of physicist Robert Hooke and was the home of Poet Laureate Alfred Lord Tennyson. Freshwater is famous for its geology and coastal rock formations that have resulted from centuries worth of coastal erosion. The "Arch Rock" was a well-known local landmark that collapsed on 25 October 1992.
There is evidence of a Roman harbour at the end of the Western Yar. In 530 AD, the Island fell to a combined force of Saxons and Jutes. After the Norman Conquest, Lord of the Island William Fitz Osbern gave the Saxon All Saints' Church and its tithes to the Norman Abbey of Lyre sometime between 1066 and his death in 1071. In 1414 all alien priories were seized by the Crown. In 1623, when King James I gave Freshwater Parish to John Williams, Bishop of Lincoln, Williams then granted Freshwater to St John's College, Cambridge on 24 March 1623.
The Freshwater Parish originally was composed of five farms, known as "tuns": Norton, Sutton, Easton, Weston and Middleton. All of these place names still exist, except for Sutton, which is now called Freshwater Bay (previously Freshwater Gate). The first meeting of the Freshwater Parish Council was on 31 December 1894.
The First Post Office came with the Freshwater railway station in 1860 it was the westerly terminus and largest station of the Freshwater, Yarmouth and Newport Railway, the platform being extended to accommodate the "Tourist Train", a non-stop service from Ventnor.
Incorporated as the Freshwater, Yarmouth and Newport Railway Company in 1860, and opened over a ten-month period between 1888 and 1889, it closed 65 years later, having been situated too far from the tourist honeypots of The Needles and Alum Bay to be consistently profitable. There was a run-round loop, and a goods siding often used for cattle loading. After closure the station was built over by a factory, but this in turn has been demolished and a supermarket now occupies the site.
A new Post Office had opened up in School Green village by 1886 at Queens Rd/Brookside Rd corner to deal with more 'tourist mail' The Station Post Office also remained in place.
Freshwater / School Green
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Freshwater Station Office
See above for history of: Freshwater Station Office.
Easton
Bedbury Lane/Victoria Road
Totland Bay
Opened at The Broadway/Madeira Road c. 1896 - still in operation.
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