Isle of Wight Holiday Diary #4 - Exploring Brighstone

Hi there everyone 😀

When this post is published we will be hunkering down in Ashford-in-the-Water in Derbyshire, hoping that the floods of this last week or so have subsided so that we can get out and about ... though I think, secretly, neither of us will really mind if we have to hibernate for a week. In fact the idea actually sounds quite appealing😀

For now though, we are back on the Isle of Wight ... and yes, we are still exploring the west of the island ...

Day 6 - Thursday

Today our plans were to actually park up and have a look round Brighstone. It's a pretty little village that we'd passed through a couple of times on our excursions so far and looked like it would be definitely worth a stop.

There is a small car park, which was full when we were trying to park but we managed to find a spot on the road, opposite the church hall ...
We couldn't have planned it better ... Thursday was craft market day ...
That was our first stop well and truly sorted and it was a real delight. Whilst we didn't actually buy anything, every single stall holder was so friendly and we spent a good while just generally chatting about the village and what we must make sure to see.

We mentioned that we'd had a quick look at the information board outside and it did look like there was more to the village than first appeared and were presented with a leaflet which included a map and two 2.5 mile walks around the north and the south of the village ...
Whilst we didn't feel quite up to completing the full walks we did want to have a bit more of a look round and headed up North Street, which was the prettiest of streets, housing a small gift shop, the village library and museum ...
We did just a short loop around the north of the village, heading left at the top of North Street onto Upper Lane and then cutting through and over Buddle Brook ...

... before heading back down Moor Lane and back on to Main Road and back into the heart of the village, passing some of the prettiest thatched cottages ever ...

Back in the heart of the village is a newsagent, pub and village shop, which had a fabulous display of fruit, veg and all manner of bits out front ...

From here we headed to the church ... we were on a Geocaching hunt and spent a good while looking round the churchyard for information that we needed to complete our quest ...

 

Having found all that we needed we headed off to complete part of the walk to the south of the village, doing another small loop which took in the ancient oak known locally as the Dragon Tree ...
We carried on down as far as Brighstone Mill before beginning to retrace our steps ...

... across the fields ...

... passing more pretty chocolate box cottages ...

... to bring us back to where we started.

I can't remember how long we spent in the village, other than the fact that it was a lot longer than we were initially expecting. If you visit and feel up to doing both of the walks and taking in a lunch stop, you could easily spend the best part of the day there.

We loved it and found it totally charming. Everyone we passed smiled and said hello, it was a really friendly and welcoming place to spend a few hours.

We decided to head off and try and find a nice spot somewhere for our picnic ... we really were making the most of the glorious weather.

We ended up at the car park for St Catherine's Oratory, where it was just a little bit breezy, but the views were fabulous ...
Lunch done we weren't quite ready to head back just yet and decided to take a drive along the Old BlackGang Road and have a look at the impact of the landslides, which have occurred over the years.

It's a very narrow road leading to a parking spot on a very windy and exposed part of the coast, but it was definitely worth a look ...

Seeing it today, looking beautiful with the blue sky and sunshine and vegetation claiming back the land, it was hard to imagine the devastation that would have been caused at the time, with houses and a great chunk of the coast lost forever ... It was quite sobering ... and on that note it was time to head back to Bramble Cottage for the evening 😔

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