Mottistone is a village and former

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 ...

, now in the parish of Brighstone, 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 ...

, 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 the island, and is home to 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 ...

's Mottistone Manor. In 1931 the parish had a population of 114. On 1 April 1933 the parish was abolished and merged with Brighstone.

History

The Island's only

megalithic A megalith is a large Rock (geology), stone that has been used to construct a prehistoric structure or monument, either alone or together with other stones. More than 35,000 megalithic structures have been identified across Europe, ranging ...

monument, the Longstone is situated nearby. The name Mottistone (the Speaker's or pleader's stone) almost certainly derives from the Longstone, which was used as a meeting place (or "moot-stone") in Anglo-Saxon times.

Geography

Mottistone Down is a

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 ...

north of Mottistone, and covering ; it adjoins the Brighstone Down, the central part of the ridge. Most of the area is owned by the National Trust, including the manor, down and cottages, and is biologically important due to its

chalk Chalk is a soft, white, porous, sedimentary carbonate rock. It is a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite and originally formed deep under the sea by the compression of microscopic plankton that had settled to the sea floor. Ch ...

and neutral grasslands.

Today

Public transport is provided 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 ...

buses on route 12. The church of St Peter and St Paul's hosts part of an annual Christmas Tree festival (the Brighstone Christmas Tree Festival) that has become very popular.

References

Natural England citation sheet for Mottistone DownMottistoneGeograph British Isles

website A website (also written as a web site) is any web page whose content is identified by a common domain name and is published on at least one web server. Websites are typically dedicated to a particular topic or purpose, such as news, educatio ...

External links

Villages on the Isle of Wight Former civil parishes in the Isle of Wight Brighstone {{IsleofWight-geo-stub