Brighstone is a village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

on the

Isle of Wight The Isle of Wight (Help:IPA/English, /waɪt/ Help:Pronunciation respelling key, ''WYTE'') is an island off the south coast of England which, together with its surrounding uninhabited islets and Skerry, skerries, is also a ceremonial county. T ...

, 6 miles southwest of Newport on the

B3399 road B roads are numbered routes in Great Britain of lesser importance than A roads. See the article Great Britain road numbering scheme In Great Britain, there is a numbering scheme used to Categorization, classify and identify all roads. Eac ...

. Brighstone was previously known as "Brixton". The name derives from the Saxon name " Ecgbert's Tun". Brighstone is the largest village in the area locally known as the

Back of the Wight Back of the Wight (also known as West Wight) is an area on the Isle of Wight in England. The area has a distinct historical and social background, and is geographically isolated by the chalk hills, immediately to the North, as well as poor publi ...

and extends toward Limerstone and

Mottistone Mottistone is a village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Brighstone, on the Isle of Wight, England. It is located in the popular tourist area the Back of the Wight. It is located 8 miles southwest of Newport in the southwest of ...

. In Roman times a villa was built to the north, to take advantage of the clean waters of the

Buddle Brook Buddle Brook a small river on the Isle of Wight, England. The Brook drains water from the southern side of Brighstone Down and as far to the east as the village of Shorwell. Its flow is the greatest of the streams in the South-West of the Island ...

History

Brighstone history dates back to the 9th century when it was given to the Bishopric of Winchester by King Egbert. Brighstone parish was formed in 1644. The civil parish comprises the main village of Brighstone together with the smaller villages of

Brook Brook may refer to: Computing *Brook, a programming language for GPU programming based on C *Brook+, an explicit data-parallel C compiler *BrookGPU, a framework for GPGPU programming People * Brook (surname) *People with the given name Brook, ...

, Hulverstone, Limerstone and

. The entire parish lies within an area of the

Isle of Wight AONB The Isle of Wight National Landscape is an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) on the Isle of Wight The Isle of Wight (Help:IPA/English, /waɪt/ Help:Pronunciation respelling key, ''WYTE'') is an island off the south coast of England ...

and its coastline is designated as

Heritage Coast A heritage coast is a strip of coastline in England and Wales, the extent of which is defined by agreement between the relevant statutory national agency and the relevant local authority. Such areas are recognised for their natural beauty, wildlife ...

and

Site of Special Scientific Interest A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain, or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland, is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle ...

. St. Mary's Church, Brighstone is a venerable old church that has stood for more than eight centuries. The village also features Brighstone Shop and Museum, owned by the

National Trust The National Trust () is a heritage and nature conservation charity and membership organisation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The Trust was founded in 1895 by Octavia Hill, Sir Robert Hunter and Hardwicke Rawnsley to "promote the ...

, displaying exhibitions on village life in the 19th century and contains a wealth of information about the Brighstone lifeboats. In 2021 a newly-identified species of dinosaur was named '' Brighstoneus simmondsi'' to reflect that its fossilised remains had been discovered at a nearby excavation site; it was discovered alongside another dinosaur, ''

Neovenator salerii ''Neovenator'' (Help:IPA/English, nˈiːə͡ʊvˌɛne͡ɪtə; "new hunter") is a genus of carcharodontosaurian Theropoda, theropod dinosaur. It is known primarily from several skeletons found in the Early Cretaceous (Hauterivian-Barremian) Wesse ...

'' in 1978.

Today

Brighstone is popular with tourists for its thatched cottages and local shops. Several large events are hosted in the village each year, including the Brighstone Show, Art exhibitions and the

Brighstone Christmas Tree Festival Brighstone Christmas Tree Festival is a local event occurring in various venues around Brighstone and Mottistone on the Isle of Wight in England for the winter tourist season. This charitable event raises money for local and national charities. ...

. The local scout hut functions as a

Youth Hostel A hostel is a form of low-cost, short-term shared sociable lodging where guests can rent a bed, usually a bunk bed in a dormitory sleeping 4–20 people, with shared use of a lounge and usually a kitchen. Rooms can be private or shared - mixe ...

during the summer.

Notable residents

The village pub is called The Three Bishops, named after three rectors of Brighstone parish who went on to become famous bishops. The first was the 17th-century Bishop Ken who wrote the famous hymns "Awake my soul and with the sun" and "Glory to Thee my God this night". Bishop Samuel Wilberforce became rector in 1830, and used to entertain his father, anti-slavery campaigner

William Wilberforce William Wilberforce (24 August 1759 – 29 July 1833) was a British politician, philanthropist, and a leader of the movement to abolish the Atlantic slave trade. A native of Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire, he began his political career in 1780 ...

. Wilberforce Road is named after him, and Brighstone's village hall is called the Wilberforce Hall. The third bishop, Doctor

George Moberly George Moberly (10 October 1803 – 6 July 1885) was an English cleric who was headmaster of Winchester College, and then served as Bishop of Salisbury from 1869 until his death. Life He was born in St Petersburg, Russian Empire in 1803, the s ...

, was headmaster of

Winchester College Winchester College is an English Public school (United Kingdom), public school (a long-established fee-charging boarding school for pupils aged 13–18) with some provision for day school, day attendees, in Winchester, Hampshire, England. It wa ...

before becoming rector of Brighstone in 1866 and bishop of Salisbury a few years later. Another notable person who lived in the village in the 19th century was the clergyman and amateur palaeontologist William Fox, who discovered several species of

dinosaur Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic Geological period, period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the #Evolutio ...

in Brighstone Bay.

Bus routes

The village is linked to other parts of the island by

Southern Vectis Southern Vectis is a bus operator on the Isle of Wight, founded in 1921 as Dodson and Campbell. It became the Vectis Bus Company in 1923. The company was purchased by Southern Railway before being nationalised in 1969. In 1987, the company wa ...

bus route 12, serving

Freshwater Fresh water or freshwater is any naturally occurring liquid or frozen water containing low concentrations of dissolved salts and other total dissolved solids. The term excludes seawater and brackish water, but it does include non-salty mi ...

Totland Totland is a village, civil parish and electoral ward on the Isle of Wight. Besides the village of Totland, the civil parish comprises the western tip of the Isle of Wight, and includes The Needles, Tennyson Down and the hamlet of Middleton. T ...

and Newport as well as intermediate villages.

References

External links