Alverstone Garden Village
Alverstone Garden Village is a hamlet near the village of Alverstone, Isle of Wight.
The beginnings
In August 1923, the Isle of Wight Rural District Council gave approval for an estate to be established in Youngwoods Copse, near Alverstone, Isle of Wight, an area of over 52 acres, which was ‘well wooded with oaks, Scotch firs, hazel, silver birch’, and which previously had been the shooting ground of the late Lord Alverstone (Sir Richard Webster, Attorney-General from 1885 to 1900).
The estate was promoted by a syndicate headed by George Frampton, and the Surveyor to the Estate was Ernest Leonard Smith, an architect of Sandown. [1]
The original plan was to have no fewer than 107 bungalows, each with at least a quarter an acre of land; facilities would include tennis courts, public gardens and a village hall (none of which were actually ever built). Due to brick the shortage at the time, it was proposed that the bungalows would be built using concrete blocks made on the site.
On 1st October 1923 the MP for the Isle of Wight, Sir Edgar Chatfeild-Clarke, laid the foundation stone for the Alverstone Garden Village Estate, the stone was incorporated in the front wall of ‘The Lodge’, one of the early bungalows at the northern end of the estate. [2]
SIR EDGAR CHATFEILD-CLARKE J.P., D.L. TO COMMEMORATES OPENING OF ALVERSTONE GARDEN VILLAGE ESTATE ON THE FIRST DAY OF OCTOBER 1923 |
Development of the estate
Sale of plots was obviously slow, possibly because of the isolated location, notwithstanding that a station on the Sandown/Newport railway was just a few minutes away.
The 1935 Kelly’s Directory lists just 16 households in Alverstone Garden Village; also listed were a Post Office and tobacconist, in Alverstone village itself.
The 1938 OS map shows a number of buildings arranged around the northern and southern ends of the site; the main ‘road’ between being one of the original ‘rides’ through the copse. There were access roads at both ends from Alverstone Shute.
The 1951 Kelly’s Directory shows only very small increase in households to 17.
In 1956 the railway line between Sandown and Newport closed,
AGV today (2023)
There’s only one road giving vehicular access into the estate, Youngwoods Way, which connects to the southern end of the village; the original northern access road is now just bridle path NC42.
The number of houses has greatly increased, no doubt the increase in car ownership during the late 20th century made the isolation of the village less important for potential residents there. The idea of just having bungalows has obviously been abandoned, as has the requirement for houses to be built of concrete blocks. A number of the original bungalows remain with their pebbledash finish, obviously covering the concrete blocks; these have often been extended, both sideways and into the roof space.
Many of the original trees still remain which suggest that unlike a modern development, when a whole site would be levelled before building, the minimum number of trees were cut down for any building over the years.
