Steephill
| Steephill | |
| Hampshire | |
|---|---|
 Steephill Cove | |
| Location | |
| Island: | Isle of Wight |
| Grid reference: | SZ550770 |
| Location: | 50°35’27"N, 1°13’24"W |
| Data | |
| Post town: | Ventnor |
| Postcode: | PO38 |
| Local Government | |
| Council: | Isle of Wight |
| Parliamentary constituency: |
Isle of Wight |
Steephill is a hamlet in Hampshire, near Ventnor on the Isle of Wight.
The hamlet was once the location of a Victorian country estate with a castle-style mansion, Steephill Castle, but regreatbly in the 1960s the castle, by then neglected, was demolished to build bungalows. Steephill today appears as part of the suburban development spread westward from Ventnor.
Steephill Cove
Steephill Cove, on the coast some 400 yards to the south, has several kiosks and self-catering cottages. Fish can be bought beneath a sign which states "Wheeler and Sons; Fishermen since the 1500s".
The cove is accessible only on foot; it is about 200 yards from A3055 Undercliff Drive, and is on the Isle of Wight Coastal Path directly adjacent to Ventnor Botanic Garden.
Estate and castle
Steephill was the location of a country estate since the time of Hans Stanley, governor of the Isle of Wight, who built there in landscaped surroundings a rustic-style house called The Cottage during his first term of office 1764-1768. After his death the estate was purchased by Wilbraham Tollemache, 6th Earl of Dysart and was his favourite residence until his death in 1821, after which the estate was sold in 1828 to John Hambrough.
It was John Hambrough who built Steephill Castle in 1835 on the site of The Cottage.[1]
Its next owner was John Morgan Richards, an American businessman who bought it in 1903. His daughter, the novelist Pearl Mary Teresa Craigie (who wrote under the pseudonym "John Oliver Hobbes") lived near the Castle from 1900–1906, writing a number of her works there.[1]
The Castle was auctioned after Richards' death after the First World War. It then saw service as a hotel with the Holiday Friendship Association (with a period as a school during the Second World War) until 1959, when upkeep and fire safety issues made this use increasingly unviable. Unused, the castle’s condition deteriorated thereafter, until a demolition order was obtained in 1963.[2]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Steephill Castle, Ventnor, Isle of Wight, the residence of John Morgan Richards, Esq.; a handbook and a history", John B Marsh, privately published by Dangerfield Printing Company, 1907 (Internet Archive ark:/13960/t6g168955)
- ↑ "The Forgotten Castle", David Paul, round-the-island.co.uk (originally pub. in Wight Life, August/September 1973 - retrieved from Internet Archive, 10 July 2013)