John Luff and John Woodford on Village Life

John W: Some of my aunties worked for Tide Hall which is down past Ducie.

John L: There were loads of locals employed in these big houses like …

John W: Some of these houses had as many as four Gardeners because they had big gardens and perhaps they had a Scullery Maid and Upstairs Maid and what have you. There was also … can’t think of the name of then place now, down Ducie. ‘Hill Grove’ that’s …

At one time there was a family called the Mortons who lived in Bembridge. They lived at ‘East Cliff’ from the 1820s onwards and they had seven children. Six of them were daughters and at one time every daughter had a house in Ducie Avenue, which is a sort of premier avenue in the village wasn’t it?

Their only son was killed in the First World War and they basically opened up Bembridge from the 1820s onwards. They had the … what’s the big Hotel down at … the ‘Bembridge’ Hotel built in the 1820s to encourage people to come to Bembridge.

Then all Bembridge was, was a collection of Hamlets. There was Lane End, there was Forelands, there was Hillway, there was the village and the Point area. In the middle there was nothing, just two houses I think, that’s all there was in the middle. Basically, it was an island, almost an island in those days as well.

You still had to come to Bembridge through Yarbridge and slowly the village developed, brought people in.

When they reclaimed the Harbour in the 1880s, they had a big Hotel built and they bought the Railway and the Ferry Boat.

Rich people started to come in the village for the sailing, the Sailing Club started, and the golf which was on the Duver and basically its always been a playhouse for rich people and so it remains today, basically.

John L: It still is.