Peter Hedley on Transport

Well there you can see the, the way it was all laid out but that’s looking at East Cowes but you see there’s one ship there, another there, another there, another there so they have four ways, as they were called, where they could build the ships and what was the Submarine Shed is there and just over here would be the Chain Ferry area but that’s looking at East Cowes but now that’s all gone, they’ve shuttered it all along and in-filled it all so it’s all flat now, built on, which actually has increased the tide, the rate of tide there to an extent where when we used to race dinghies in Folly Regatta, we used to race down the river, round number four gas harbour buoy, just off the Squadron and race back up the river.

You wouldn’t get against that tide now, in any conditions of wind. The tide, because they’ve narrowed it and also taken a lot more spoil out to form the Marinas etc. up above the Floating Bridge and when the Good Lord floods the tide, he fills all that area and of course it’s all got to come out on an ebb tide and it … the amount of water, extra water that’s gone up there has got to come out and it’s sped up because it’s narrowed just near the Floating Bridge and that’s one of the big problems with the Floating Bridge at the moment, being pushed down hard against the chains.

This is Bannisters, the rope works, I remember going round this with my grandfather. My grandfather, he was Manager at Shepperd’s which used to import a lot of the things into the Island, coal and anything that had to come over in their, their little ships, um, and was offloaded at Medina Road there and he was Manager there. 

This Bannisters was just up the road from where he worked and he knew the people and he took me round this, er, rope making area and the road, um, the road, Medina Road, no it’s not Medina Road, it’s another road, they’ve taken the hump out of it and the hump was put into it to allow this walk rope way and now they’ve flattened it out because of course they don’t use that tunnel any more.

Lisa: And, this is a tunnel?

Yes that’s a tunnel which went under the road and under a lot of the houses and things. And, there was another tunnel which went from Mill Hill to Cowes railway station, um, I don’t know what they use that tunnel for now, but they did a lot of work for all the rope works in their day.