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Isle of Wight
The Isle of Wight (/waɪt/ WYTE) is an island off the south coast of England which, together with its surrounding uninhabited islets and skerries, is also a ceremonial county. The county is bordered by Hampshire across the Solent strait to the north, and is otherwise surrounded by the English Channel. Its largest settlement is Ryde, and the administrative centre is Newport.
The Isle of Wight has a land area of 380 km2 (150 sq mi) and had a population of 140,794 in 2022, making it the largest and second-most populous English island. The island is largely rural, with the largest settlements primarily on the coast. These include Ryde in the north-east, Shanklin and Sandown in the south-east, and the large villages of Totland and Freshwater in the west. Newport is located inland at the point at which the River Medina broadens into its estuary, and Cowes and East Cowes flank the estuary on the northern coast. For local government purposes the island is a unitary authority area. It was historically part of Hampshire.
The island is known for its mild climate, coastal scenery, and verdant landscape of fields, downland, and chines. It is said to be the sunniest place of Great Britain. It has been designated a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. The distance between the Isle of Wight and mainland Great Britain is between 2 and 5 miles (3 and 8 kilometres). The island also contains dinosaur fossils.
The island has played an essential part in the defence of the ports of Southampton and Portsmouth and has been near the front line of conflicts through the ages, having faced the Spanish Armada and weathered the Battle of Britain. From the Victorian era significant urban development took place as the island developed into a tourist destination; it was home to the poets Algernon Charles Swinburne and Alfred, Lord Tennyson, and Queen Victoria built her summer residence and final home, Osborne House, at East Cowes. It has a maritime and industrial tradition of boat-building, sail-making, the manufacture of flying boats, hovercraft, and Britain's space rockets. The island hosts annual music festivals, including the Isle of Wight Festival, which in 1970 was the largest rock music event ever held.
The oldest records that give a name for the Isle of Wight are from the Roman Empire. It was called Vectis or Vecta in Latin and Iktis (Ίκτις) or Ouiktis in Ancient Greek. Latin Vecta, Old English Wiht, and Old Welsh Gueid and Guith were recorded from the Anglo-Saxon period. In medieval irish sources such as the Sanas Cormaic it is found as Icht, hIcht, n-Iucht and lucht. The Domesday Book called the island Wit. The modern Welsh name is Ynys Wyth (ynys meaning 'island'). These are all variants of the same name, possibly sharing a Celtic origin with Welsh gwaith 'work', a cognate of both Latin vectis ('lever', or literally 'the act of lifting') and Old English wiht ('weight'). It may mean 'place of the division,' since the island divides the two arms of the Solent.
In Old English, inhabitants of the Isle were known as Wihtware.
During Pleistocene glacial periods sea levels were lower than at present, and the area that today forms the Solent was part of the valley of the now extinct Solent River. The river flowed eastward from Dorset, following the course of the modern Solent strait. The river travelled east of the Isle of Wight before flowing southwest towards the major Channel River system. At these times, extensive gravel terraces associated with the Solent River and the forerunners of the island's modern rivers were deposited. During warmer interglacial periods, silts, beach gravels, clays, and muds of marine and estuarine origin were deposited due to higher sea levels, suggesting similar marine or estuary conditions to those experienced today.
The earliest clear evidence of Lower Palaeolithic archaic human occupation on what is now the Isle of Wight is found close to Priory Bay. More than 300 acheulean handaxes have been recovered from the beach and cliff slopes, originating from a sequence of Pleistocene gravels dating approximately to MIS 11-MIS 9 (424,000–374,000 years ago). Reworked and abraded artefacts found at the site may be considerably older however, closer to 500,000 years old. The identity of the hominids who produced these tools is unknown. However, sites and fossils of the same age range in Europe are often attributed to Homo heidelbergensis or early populations of Neanderthals.
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Isle of Wight
The Isle of Wight (/waɪt/ WYTE) is an island off the south coast of England which, together with its surrounding uninhabited islets and skerries, is also a ceremonial county. The county is bordered by Hampshire across the Solent strait to the north, and is otherwise surrounded by the English Channel. Its largest settlement is Ryde, and the administrative centre is Newport.
The Isle of Wight has a land area of 380 km2 (150 sq mi) and had a population of 140,794 in 2022, making it the largest and second-most populous English island. The island is largely rural, with the largest settlements primarily on the coast. These include Ryde in the north-east, Shanklin and Sandown in the south-east, and the large villages of Totland and Freshwater in the west. Newport is located inland at the point at which the River Medina broadens into its estuary, and Cowes and East Cowes flank the estuary on the northern coast. For local government purposes the island is a unitary authority area. It was historically part of Hampshire.
The island is known for its mild climate, coastal scenery, and verdant landscape of fields, downland, and chines. It is said to be the sunniest place of Great Britain. It has been designated a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. The distance between the Isle of Wight and mainland Great Britain is between 2 and 5 miles (3 and 8 kilometres). The island also contains dinosaur fossils.
The island has played an essential part in the defence of the ports of Southampton and Portsmouth and has been near the front line of conflicts through the ages, having faced the Spanish Armada and weathered the Battle of Britain. From the Victorian era significant urban development took place as the island developed into a tourist destination; it was home to the poets Algernon Charles Swinburne and Alfred, Lord Tennyson, and Queen Victoria built her summer residence and final home, Osborne House, at East Cowes. It has a maritime and industrial tradition of boat-building, sail-making, the manufacture of flying boats, hovercraft, and Britain's space rockets. The island hosts annual music festivals, including the Isle of Wight Festival, which in 1970 was the largest rock music event ever held.
The oldest records that give a name for the Isle of Wight are from the Roman Empire. It was called Vectis or Vecta in Latin and Iktis (Ίκτις) or Ouiktis in Ancient Greek. Latin Vecta, Old English Wiht, and Old Welsh Gueid and Guith were recorded from the Anglo-Saxon period. In medieval irish sources such as the Sanas Cormaic it is found as Icht, hIcht, n-Iucht and lucht. The Domesday Book called the island Wit. The modern Welsh name is Ynys Wyth (ynys meaning 'island'). These are all variants of the same name, possibly sharing a Celtic origin with Welsh gwaith 'work', a cognate of both Latin vectis ('lever', or literally 'the act of lifting') and Old English wiht ('weight'). It may mean 'place of the division,' since the island divides the two arms of the Solent.
In Old English, inhabitants of the Isle were known as Wihtware.
During Pleistocene glacial periods sea levels were lower than at present, and the area that today forms the Solent was part of the valley of the now extinct Solent River. The river flowed eastward from Dorset, following the course of the modern Solent strait. The river travelled east of the Isle of Wight before flowing southwest towards the major Channel River system. At these times, extensive gravel terraces associated with the Solent River and the forerunners of the island's modern rivers were deposited. During warmer interglacial periods, silts, beach gravels, clays, and muds of marine and estuarine origin were deposited due to higher sea levels, suggesting similar marine or estuary conditions to those experienced today.
The earliest clear evidence of Lower Palaeolithic archaic human occupation on what is now the Isle of Wight is found close to Priory Bay. More than 300 acheulean handaxes have been recovered from the beach and cliff slopes, originating from a sequence of Pleistocene gravels dating approximately to MIS 11-MIS 9 (424,000–374,000 years ago). Reworked and abraded artefacts found at the site may be considerably older however, closer to 500,000 years old. The identity of the hominids who produced these tools is unknown. However, sites and fossils of the same age range in Europe are often attributed to Homo heidelbergensis or early populations of Neanderthals.
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