Osborne, Isle of Wight, England

The following is from the English Heritage Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest.

Formal terraces, pleasure grounds, and a park surrounding a contemporary Italianate house which, from 1845 to 1901, was the family home of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, the house and grounds being designed and planted by Prince Albert in association with the building firm of Thomas Cubitt and incorporating a former 18th- and early 19th-century park.

LOCATION, AREA, BOUNDARIES, LANDFORM, SETTING

Osborne is situated on the north coast of the Isle of Wight overlooking Osborne Bay, on the east side of the Medina River and the town of East Cowes. The 240 hectare registered site comprises about 20 hectares of formal gardens and pleasure grounds and some 220 hectares of parkland and woodland. The western boundary is enclosed from the abutting York Avenue (A3021) and housing of East Cowes by walling along the frontage of Albert Cottage (listed grade II) and by fencing and, along its southern half, by a boundary tree belt planted by Prince Albert in 1846-7. The western third of the estate occupies level ground at the head of a shallow valley which falls gently north-eastwards to Osborne Bay, the valley sides rising onto broad ridges to the north-west and south-east. The tree-fringed shoreline forms the eastern site boundary. The parkland and woodland covering the valley sides and ridges merges with that of the adjacent estates of, respectively, Norris Castle (see the description of this site elsewhere in the Register) to the north-west and Barton Manor to the south-east.

REFERENCES Used by English Heritage

Victoria History of the County of Hampshire V, (1912), pp 198-200

N Pevsner and D Lloyd, The Buildings of England: Hampshire and the Isle of Wight (1967), pp 756-9

J Phibbs et al, Royal Parks Historic Survey: Osborne, Isle of Wight (English Heritage 1983)

Osborne House: Management Plan, (English Heritage 1993)

Osborne House, guidebook, (English Heritage, 4th edition 1994)

Maps

Tithe map for Whippingham parish, 1841 (Isle of Wight Record Office)

OS Surveyor’s drawing, 2" to 1 mile, surveyed 1793 (British Library Maps)

OS 6" to 1 mile: 1st edition published 1863; 2nd edition 1898; 3rd edition revised 1907; 1938 edition

OS 25" to 1 mile: 1st edition surveyed 1863-4; 2nd edition revised 1896, published 1898; 3rd edition published 1908

Archival items

Records held by the Royal Family at Windsor include:

Queen Victoria's Journal, edited by Princess Beatrice (RA QVJ);

A summary of the various works proposed and executed on the Osborne Estate from 1845 to 1861 inclusive, by direction of HRH the Prince Consort, with continuation to the end of 1890 [printed privately by W R Yelf in 1891 (RL II 42 Gall.C)].

Records are also held at the Isle of Wight Record Office in Newport, at the PRO at Kew, at Parkhurst, Isle of Wight (Forestry Commission records), and at Winchester College (Barton Manor).

Description written: June 1999

Amended: June 2000

Edited January 2005