At the end of the previous post detailing our day aboard the Paddle Steamer Waverley we’d crossed the Solent from Portsmouth and arrived at the Isle of Wight (see: Paddle Steamer Waverley From Portsmouth To The Isle Of Wight). This was scheduled to be a short stop, allowing some passengers from the mainland to disembark and spend the day ashore while others aboard and new passengers waiting to board would then circle the island before returning later in the day to offload and pick up people again ahead of its return to Portsmouth.
That was the plan, anyway.
We’d seen how many people were planning to board as we approached the island so made the sensible decision to get ourselves some lunch on board before the ship filled up. Our expectation was that we’d be eating as we set off again and then we could head outside to admire the views of the Isle of Wight from the deck alongside all the new passengers.
We finished our fish and chips, and the ship still hadn’t moved. We headed outside to find a lot of glum-looking faces. After a few more minutes there was an announcement. Waverley had developed a fault which they could fix but which would take too much time to complete the planned circumnavigation of the island. New boarding passengers were being issued refunds or the opportunity to sail again on a later sailing, and those of us with tickets from Portsmouth were being offered a partial refund equivalent to us having taken the cheaper Portsmouth to Yarmouth return trip instead. We thought it might be a bit churlish to accept that refund for a historic ship being run as well as she could be that had simply had an unforeseen issue so didn’t bother.
Meanwhile, Waverley was going to remain docked at Yarmouth and we were free to explore ashore for several hours if we wanted. And of course we did. However, we hadn’t been planning to do so originally so didn’t know what there would be to see.
As we disembarked Waverley we could see planes flying overhead spraying mind-control mist over the island. It’s the only way to keep the people there content with their lives. Luckily, we wouldn’t be ashore long enough to fall victim to its insidious ways. During our few hours in Yarmouth we would see plenty of other aircraft too, including an American B-52 bomber briefly, as there was an air show taking place in Bournemouth at that time.
To reach Yarmouth we had to walk down its pier. Yarmouth Pier originally dates to 1876, but being wooden and prone to woodworm it’s been restored and rebuilt many times since then.
We could see from the pier and from the maps on our phones that there was a castle very close by. In fact, from our maps it appeared to be the only thing to see in Yarmouth, but we had also spotted some pubs so knew we wouldn’t have too much trouble spending some time in the tiny town. To the castle first, then, and we passed a colourful mosaic mural on the way to it.
Yarmouth Castle is one of the Device Forts built under the orders of Henry VIII to protect the UK from potential attacks from Catholic countries encouraged to do so by the Pope, unhappy that Henry had broken from the church. Roughly square in shape and with an arrow-shaped bastion on its landward side – the first of these forts to be built that way – Yarmouth Castle was to protect the approach to the Solent from the west side of the Isle of Wight. It originally had a moat around it, but this has since been filled in and part of that land now forms what is now the adjoining George Hotel.
Yarmouth Castle is small but it’s definitely worth a look around. A lot of its interior layouts seem to reflect the earlier history of the fortifications, while on top it feels more as if you’re experiencing the Victorian occupation period. The castle was ready to be used in numerous conflicts right up until the Second World War although actual action was somewhat thin on the ground.
From the top of Yarmouth Castle there was a nice view down the pier and to Waverley docked at the end of it.
We decided to see if there was anything in Yarmouth that wasn’t appearing on the map. After a stroll up and down the streets, not really would be the answer there. We didn’t venture inside St James’ Church but if we had then we would have seen a statue of the seventeenth-century admiral Sir Robert Holmes. The face is his but the body is that of the French king Louis XIV. Holmes acquired the unfinished statue during a raid and forced the sculptor to complete it with his own likeness.
We had thought it would be fairly easy to get a drink as the town was small but there were a decent number of pubs. However, it was also very busy, partly because Waverley had arrived and all the people who should have been on her and sailing around the Isle of Wight were now in town. We eventually found space and some decent drinks in the Wheatsheaf.
There didn’t seem to be a lot of point in spending much more time in Yarmouth, so after a few photos from the small beach area on the eastern side of the pier we made our way back to the paddle steamer.
In the final part of this short series covering our day on Waverley I’ll show what we saw and got up to on the return trip across the Solent from the Isle of Wight to Portsmouth. And by that I mean I’ll just be posting some photos of the cruise back over the Solent because we didn’t do anything at all.