This comprehensive and generously illustrated guide explores the beguiling buildings of the Isle of Wight. The island's many towns, villages, and resorts are included in a detailed gazetteer, as are the charming villas and "cottages ornes" dotted around the spectacular coasts. Among the grand architecture found on the island are the powerful fortress of Carisbrooke Castle; the rich Baroque mansion of Appuldurcombe; Victoria and Albert's Osborne House; and the extraordinary Quarr Abbey, a masterpiece of Expressionist brick. Other attractions include Roman villas, sturdy manor houses, powerful coastal defenses built for Henry VIII (and reinforced under Queen Victoria), and the retreats of Tennyson and other Victorian notables, not to mention a well-established tradition of innovative modern design.

This volume, a companion to Hampshire: Winchester and the North, covers the county's southern half, from the woodland and heath of the New Forest to the cities along the Solent, and from remote Saxon churches to Modernist seaside villas. The original text has been fully revised to include new research and 130 specially commissioned color photographs. The guide explores major ecclesiastical monuments at Romsey, the Bishop of Winchester's palace at Bishops Waltham, and the remains of the great post-Dissolution houses at Beaulieu and Titchfield. At Southampton is one of England's best preserved medieval town walls, while at Portsmouth the structures of the 18th- and 19th-century Royal Navy dockyard are among the most important of their kind. Amid all this beauty are traces of conflict, from the Roman fort at Portchester, to the coastal castles of Henry VIII's rule, to the relics of the Normandy invasions of 1944.