This stunning building is the West Cowes Sea Bathing Company. Sea water bathing was very popular in Victorian times, and to capture the market, The West Cowes Sea Bathing Company opened in the 1860s at Shore End, Queens Road. The building still stands, to the left of what is now the New Hollywood Hotel, although the veranda has been demolished. Plans were concluded about 1868, and a tender went out for a steam engine, boiler and other parts for the proposed baths. A steam pum

This is Regent House, Market Hill, Cowes. Now a private house, it was once the Prince Regent pub, with the original building dating back to the 1830s. The older building was described as being used, ‘by a very rough class’ and featured regularly in the local newspapers of the time for theft, drunkenness, child neglect and even selling beer to an underage child. Eventually the pub was rebuilt in 1910, in the style you see it today. Throughout its history, the pub had a constan

The is the Russian Imperial Yacht Standart which visited Cowes in 1909. In August 1909, Tsar Nicholas II, the last Tsar of Russia, and his family visited the Isle of Wight aboard the Russian Imperial Yacht Standart (pictured) for four nights. - The Russian and British royal families were closely related, as both Tsar Nicholas and the Tsarina were first cousins of King George V. The King’s grandsons David and Bertie (the future Edward VIII and George VI) were cadets at the nav

This magnificent building is Victoria House, number 41 High Street Cowes, now the shop ‘Live Like This’. To the left are numbers 40 and 41a, now Marvins and Sailor Ted. The sketch shows how the shops looked at the beginning of the last century when it was Redferns drapery business. From the look of the decorations (which include electrical strung coloured lights) and the history of the Redferns business, my guess is that it is decorated for Edward VII’s coronation in August

Today’s marker pen sketch is of the Boathouse, such a beautiful red bricked building in Queens Road, Cowes. According to historian John Groves, the Boathouse was a cottage built to accommodate servants working at Stanhope House, as well as a boat! Censuses from 1901 and 1939 show that the house was inhabited by gardeners and maids, most probably working at Stanhope. Mr Groves suggests that the house was owned jointly by Ladies Blanche and Frances Stanhope who lived at Stanhop

This is marker pen sketch of the beautiful Rosetta Cottage, right on the seafront at Queen’s Road, Cowes. According to a leaflet Bricks and Mortar, Rosetta Cottage was once a works office for a local rope maker who built a 1,000 ft long rope walk which ran east along what is now Queens Road (a ropewalk is a long straight narrow pathway where strands of material are laid out to be twisted into rope) The first known occupant for Rosetta House was Robert Dambrill, a retired mas

This is Windsor House, Castle Road, Cowes. See history in the comments below. There were several Cowes houses known Windsor House in the 20thC, one in Prospect Road, one in Newport Road, and this one, number 2 Castle Road built in the 1750s. Windsor House is currently up for sale and property websites notes: ‘The current Isle of Wight volume of Pevsner's The Buildings of England describes this part of Castle Road as 'one the pleasantest pieces of townscape in Cowes', and refe

This is a painting of 9 Birmingham Road, Cowes, also known as Blenheim House - how it looked around the early 1900s when it was Beken and Son. On the britishlistedubildings website, it suggests that the original timber building probably dates back to the C17 and was refronted in late C18. - The earliest evidence of Blenheim House is the 1841 census which lists the house in Medina Road (it must have changed to Birmingham Road later). Frederick Wyatt, a builder from Hythe, li

This iconic Cowes building is Alexandra House, 19 Birmingham Road. Until quite recently it has been empty and boarded up. Still empty, this is how it now looks with the stonework cleaned and new railings. The building was originally built as a Wesleyan Methodist church in 1831. As the congregation grew quickly, a year later in 1832, the church was enlarged with side galleries and a new organ, and in 1849, a large vestry was added. Sunday school was held in a large hall at the

Clare Lallows was established in 1867 and has been running from Medina Road ever since. They have built many boats, from dinghies, scows, several Jolinas, SCODs, Dragons, Drumbeat and Britannia a double ended row boat designed by Uffa Fox that John Fairfax rowed across the Atlantic. In 1970 they were commissioned to build a yacht for the then Prime Minister Edward Heath. Morning Cloud II was launched in 1971 and was so successful that his next boat was also built by Lallows (

The Sandown history gallery is steadily growing. Please contact me with requests for drawings, history, or to share any further information about the buildings featured. Please read more about the history of Sandown shops with more shop illustrations on our page Sandown History.