The sea mark

Over the years we have given more time to the sea mark on Ashey Down, the one I suspect of having a masonic connection, either for or against, on account of the mark eschewing right angles. One visit was noticed at reference 1. Another was the visit, noticed at reference 2, was the occasion of finding some monster field mushrooms, although I chickened out of actually picking any of them.

This year we made it to the other one, the truncated church of St. Helen's, with the seaward face painted white for clarity. A very pleasant spot, complete with car park, benches (some of them in the shade), beach and café (already noticed). And the possible naval sighting noticed at reference 3.

BH at work at the car parking machine: possibly not a telephone job as I think it was National Trust. So she pays!

We started proceedings with a sit on a bench, behind what is left of the church in the snap above.

I then had a short stroll on the beach, taking in the ledge above.

Plenty of interesting rock-pools, absence of macroscopic animal life notwithstanding.

Which was not quite true, as there were quite of lot of these curious, multiplying shells on the sand.

Google Images knew all about them, with his story being largly confirmed by Wikipedia at reference 6. Part of his story came from reference 7, for the more serious punter. Clearly interesting blighters, even if some people regard them an an invasive pest. Aka the fornicating slipper snail.

A National Trust plaque, plus a memorial heart reading: 'Special Dad: Forever in the hearts and minds of the loving family you left behind'.

I subsequently found a miniature version, perhaps 3cm wide, probably fro.m the same shop. Snapped on my sunshade, complete with tie, recycled from one of my now many pairs of 'Moab ventilators', branded for Merrell, (owned by Wolverine Worldwide of reference 4) and made in Vietnam. At least they were, last time I looked.

Google Images seems clear enough about where they come from, and while I did not find this specific one at reference 5, they certainly got pretty warm. Bit of a long shot, so I was impressed. So bought online, or from some gift shop. I dare say one could find somewhere suitable in Ryde.

These stones made me think of my pebble counting excursion, a few years back now. Maybe one afternoon when it is too hot to do anything more demanding, I shall attempt to count, or at least estimate the number here. See, for example, reference 8.

Last up, an impressive house, one of three, behind the car park. A bit big by today's standards and a bit far from town.

But Google Images is on the case. In response to a supplementary about who might have bought such a place back in 1900 or so, he he says that they were built as holiday homes and he closes with: 'when you look at this property today, you are looking at a relic of a time when "a summer cottage" meant a 3,000-square-foot stone villa staffed by servants'.

And to another he gives me the above. We know all about conservation areas as we have one very near us. Not listed buildings but definitely tendencies in that direction.

A good half day at St. Helen's and a good outing for Google Images. But we passed on the fine bookshop on the green a mile or so behind the beach, at reference 9, which we have used from time to time. Nor, as it happens, did we get to the even more interesting bookshop at the top of Ryde High Street.

PS 1: MSN pads its site out with eye-catching stuff which they dig out of the archives; useful on slow news days. So today there was an article about tunnels connecting the Isle of Wight to the mainland, an idea which has been knocking around for 150 years or more, surfacing in style from time to time.

Some of this was driven by ambitious engineers who liked projects. Some by planners who wanted to get a bit more money into the island, to better integrate it with the more prosperous mainland. Another driver was a perception that the island was in the grip of the ferry companies which was very wrong. So we have a campaign group at reference 10 and a catalogue of big tunnels and bridges connecting up various parts of the British archipelago at reference 11. All seems a bit fanciful to me. I associate to the enormously expensive A3 tunnel at Hindhead; a fine thing to have, but was it a good use of public money?

And on the periphery there are various people who dig out the history of the projects that failed, at least one of which looks to have got as far as some test tunnelling (on the mainland).

I found it helpful to look at the history of Skye Bridge, with which I had a passing acquaintance when I was in the world of work, to be found at reference 12. A crossing which is shorter, but of the same order as that to the Isle of Wight, a bridge rather than a tunnel - but a crossing which was built, so there is rather more history to go on. As it happens, an early foray into the world of the Private Finance Initiative (PFI), all the thing at the time.

But then memory let me down. We once went to Skye after the bridge was built and my memory is of a bridge very low over the water, almost a causeway. But the images of the bridge I turned up were not like that at all; rather a great arch over the water. How was this?

With the help of Gemini, I established that there was a lot of talk of visual intrusion at the time. And that there were two channels to cross, not one. But then the main channel is fast and deep and a tunnel would be difficult and expensive. While a bridge had also to be high enough to take small ships. On the other hand, the subsidiary channel, connecting the mainland to Eilean Bàn, an island part way across, did not present those problems and a low bridge would be possible. Mainland top right in the snap above. I was pointed to reference 13, where the opening snaps make this clear.

My memory - from wherever I had got it - had conflated the two bridges, and presumably remembering the fuss about visual impact, had made the conflated bridge much more water hugging than it really was. Maybe driving across it one gets a different idea and I probably never saw it from the side, from a distance. And it was probably more than twenty years ago. BH is being consulted on that point.

All grist to the mill.

PS 2: presumably enough people wanted the bridge to be built, to ride over the people who liked the views. And the whole thing is much smaller both in money and engineering terms than a bridge over the Solent would be - or a tunnel under for that matter. Politically it must have been feasible in Scotland in a way that I suspect it is not in Hampshire. Which is not to say that there was not plenty of controversy, some of which found its way into reference 12.

References 

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/08/sea-mark.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/07/monster-mushrooms.html. Pity I did not have  my archaeologists scale bar with me - finding which.  is left as an exercise for the reader. Clue: prehistoric fire place.

Reference 3: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/07/was-it-navy.html.

Reference 4: https://wolverineworldwide.com/..

Reference 5: https://joedavies.co.uk/.

Reference 6: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crepidula_fornicata.

Reference 7: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/BBLv229n3p276.

Reference 8: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/06/counting-pebbles.html.

Reference 9: https://thegoosebooks.com/.

Reference 10: https://solentfreedomtunnel.co.uk/. The source of the mock-up above.

Reference 11: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proposed_British_Isles_fixed_sea_link_connections.

Reference 12: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skye_Bridge.

Reference 13: https://marine.gov.scot/sites/default/files/supporting_information_-_works.pdf.

Reference 14: https://www.spencewillard.co.uk/listing/the-duver-st-helens-isle-of-wight/. The house was there today; all present and correct. The brochure focuses more on the setting than the interior, so one supposes a fair amount of work is needed to bring it up to scratch.

Reference 15: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/2010/02/erratum.html. The result of the search for 'portree'. So I think we visited Skye between the introduction of the smoking ban in Scotland in March 2006 and that in England the following year, in July 2007. The blog started up in October 2006, so I put the visit down to the summer of 2006, just about the time I retired. The bridge opened in 1995. Maybe BH will turn up some corroborating holiday snaps.

Group search key: 20260717, aisk.