Freshwater

Rural western tip of the island with dramatic chalk coast and literary heritage

A parish and collection of settlements in the western tip of the island, including Freshwater village, Freshwater Bay, Totland and the approaches to The Needles. The area has a quieter, more rural character than the eastern resort towns, with rolling downland, dramatic chalk cliffs and some of the finest coastal walking on the island. Freshwater Bay is a small, sheltered cove popular with swimmers and kayakers, backed by chalk cliffs and a hotel. The poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson lived at Farringford House in Freshwater from 1853 until his death in 1892, and the house is now a hotel. Tennyson Down, the high chalk ridge running west towards The Needles, is named after him, and the Tennyson Monument stands at its summit. Totland, at the western end of the parish, has a small pier and a quiet beach looking across the Solent to Hurst Castle on the Hampshire coast. Freshwater has a strong community with village shops, a parish church, primary schools and a sense of being pleasantly remote from the busier parts of the island.