A tour of Osborne House and Gardens on the Isle of Wight
We headed overseas (well, The Solent actually) and
visited Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. Designed by Prince
Albert, Osborne House was the seaside retreat of Queen Victoria and has
the most wonderfully scenic and colourful gardens within the grounds as
well as the quaint Swiss Cottage. Osborne House is in East Cowes,
Hampshire, and is run by English Heritage.
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Getting to the Isle of Wight involves crossing The Solent from the
mainland, here's our friend Bob on deck taking a pic of the ferry going
the other way to Portsmouth. Belinda's admiring the, er, view!
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Down below deck there were plenty of comfortable seats for the short,
barely half-hour crossing to the Isle of Wight. A small cafeteria
served drinks and snacks, but they'd run out of hot chocolate!
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Osborne House is a short walk from the parking area and visitor
centre. Apart from a shuttle-bus, this quaint horse drawn
carriage ride provides complementary transport for those less able as
well as providing an early photo opportunity for Belinda.
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Here's the visitor entrance to Osborne House itself; yes, that little
door the people are heading in! It seemed more like the back door
really and totally out of place for a previous Royal Residence!
That was our first disappointment, the next was that they...
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...didn't permit photography inside! An ever increasing number of
visitor attractions seem to have this tiresome policy now,
frustratingly Osborne House didn't bother to mention this on their
website. Anyhow, we were able to capture this shot from a window
of the extensive terraced gardens below...
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...which we then wandered around once our 1½ hour tour of the rather
opulent Osborne House interior was done (where we marvelled at the
grand Royal Apartments, Queen Victoria's private rooms, the Indian
inspired Durbar Room... hmmm, pity we couldn't take photos
though!). The Italianate gardens contain...
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...a number of fountains and statues. This gushing one
immediately in front of Osborne House caught Belinda's eye and so worth
a low angle shot. Now, where's the loo?
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Disappointingly the lower garden terrace was closed off to the public,
another thing that wasn't mentioned on English Heritage's Osborne House
website. Come on guys!
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Another part of the wonderful gardens at Osborne House. There's
also the restored Victorian Walled Garden to explore, with its hot
houses containing exotic plants. Adult entrance to Osborne House
normally cost £10.20 at the time of our visit but we got a group rate.
You can visit our UK
tourist links page for associated websites to the places we visit.
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A close-up of one of the many statues in the gardens at Osborne House.
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Having explored the magnificent Osborne House gardens we made our
way past this water feature through the very extensive grounds with sea
views to...
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...the miniature Swiss Cottage, where Queen Victoria's children
played. Today there's a small museum inside and a lovely wild
flower meadow nearby plus further...
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...in Swiss Cottage's grounds is this bathing machine. Queen
Victoria is credited with popularising sea bathing, but in Victorian
days they were a modest lot and required this contraption to change on
the beach. Hmmm, maybe it'll make a great garden shed!
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So, time for a last look at Osborne House with its prominent Italianate
towers on the half-mile walk through the grounds back to the visitor
centre. There we looked around the inevitable gift shop and had a
coffee in the spacious cafe before...
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...heading back to Fishbourne to catch the ferry across The Solent to
the mainland. A shot of the ferry's bridge here, as you can see
no-one else is on the sun deck!
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Hey, we've just been overtaken by a faster ferry on the approach to
Portsmouth! And over on the right is the Spinnaker Tower, another
target for a visit someday...
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