This is a comprehensive guide to the buildings of the Isle of Wight. The beguiling architecture of the many towns, villages and resorts is explored in full, as are the charming villas and cottages ornes dotted around the spectacular coasts. But the Island also boasts architecture on the grandest scale: the powerful fortress of Carisbrooke Castle, with its evocative Saxon foundations; the rich and enigmatic baroque mansion of Appuldurcombe; Osborne House, the domestic paradise of Victoria and Albert, with its formal gardens; and the extraordinary "Quarr Abbey", a masterpiece of Expressionist brick by the French monk and architect, Dom Paul Bellot. Other attractions include Roman villas, sturdy manor houses, powerful coastal defences built for Henry VIII (and reinforced under Queen Victoria), and the retreats of Tennyson and other Victorian notables, not to mention a well-established tradition of innovative modern design. Each town or village is treated in a detailed gazetteer. A general introduction provides a historical and artistic overview. Numerous text illustrations, maps and plans, nearly a hundred new colour photographs, full indexes and an illustrated glossary help to make this book invaluable as both reference work and guide

The Isle of Wight is a geological gem with its 110km (68 mile) long coastline displaying a range of rocks dating from Lower Cretaceous to Oligocene age. Many of the sands and clays yield fossil bivalves and gastropods, and its famous dinosaur footprints attract much attention from geologists and tourists alike. Yet the scenic beauty of the island is the product of its differing strata, former earth movements and the erosive power of the sea and the rivers. The monoclinal fold that crosses the island forms the chalk downland ridge that ends in the splendid cliffs of Culver in the east and The Needles in the west. By contrast, the softer rocks produce low, slumped cliffs often cut by steep-sided chines or alternatively, on the north coast, branching estuaries and salt marsh creeks. With over 120 colour illustrations this book discusses the geological processes that created the island's distinctive landscape; it provides a field guide to the identification of rocks and fossils and includes details of nineteen itineraries to discover the geological examples and fossils discussed.

In this wide-ranging history of modern Britain, Eric Evans surveys every aspect of the period in which Britain was transformed into the world's first industrial power. By the end of the nineteenth century, Britain was still ruled by wealthy landowners, but the world over which they presided had been utterly transformed. It was an era of revolutionary change unparalleled in Britain - yet that change was achieved without political revolution. Ranging across the developing empire, and dealing with such central institutions as the church, education, health, finance and rural and urban life, The Shaping of Modern Britain provides an unparallelled account of Britain's rise to superpower status. Particular attention is given to the Great Reform Act of 1832, and the implications of the 1867 Reform Act are assessed. The book discusses: - the growing role of the central state in domestic policy making - the emergence of the Labour party - the Great Depression - the acquisition of a vast territorial empire Comprehensive, informed and engagingly written, The Shaping of Modern Britain will be an invaluable introduction for students of this key period of British history.

Fear and the Shaping of Early American Societies is the first collection of essays to argue that fear permeated the colonial societies of 17th- and 18th-century America and to analyse its impact on the political decision-making processes from a variety of angles and locations. Indeed, the thirteen essays range from Canada to the Chesapeake, from New England to the Caribbean and from the Carolina Backcountry to Dutch Brazil. This volume assesses the typically American nature of fear factors and the responses they elicited in a transatlantic context. The essays further explore how the European colonists handled such challenges as Indian conspiracies, slave revolts, famine, “popery” and tyranny as well as werewolves and a dragon to build cohesive societies far from the metropolis. Contributors are: Sarah Barber, Benjamin Carp, Leslie Choquette, Anne-Claire Faucquez, Lauric Henneton, Elodie Peyrol-Kleiber, Susanne Lachenicht, Bertie Mandelblatt, Mark Meuwese, L. H. Roper, David L. Smith, Bertrand Van Ruymbeke, Christopher Vernon, and David Voorhees.

This unique richly-illustrated account of the landforms and geology of the world’s coasts, presented in a country-by-country (state-by-state) sequence, assembles a vast amount of data and images of an endangered and increasingly populated and developed landform. An international panel of 138 coastal experts provides information on “what is where” on each sector of coast, together with explanations of the landforms, their evolution and the changes taking place on them. As well as providing details on the coastal features of each country (state or county) the compendium can be used to determine the extent of particular features along the world’s coasts and to investigate comparisons and contrasts between various world regions. With more than 1440 color illustrations and photos, it is particularly useful as a source of information prior to researching or just visiting a sector of coast. References are provided to the current literature on coastal evolution and coastline changes.

This is a comprehensive study of the early history and inhabitants of Isle of Wight County. It begins with a graphic description of the early settlers--including accounts of Quakers and Cavaliers--and is followed by detailed histories of the various Isle of Wight families. Nearly 200 pages of this voluminous work are devoted to abstracts of deeds, land records, and quit rents. Besides a place and subject index, the work further includes a 38-page name index of several thousand entries.

During 2000/2001 exceptionally high winter rainfall resulted in major ground instability problems on the Isle of Wight, and coincided with the completion of important research on the predicted impacts of climate change on unstable coastal and mountainous areas. These proceedings highlight the importance of implementing coastal and landslide management strategies and integrating the research findings into strategic planning and development control policies.