Shanklin Chine is a geological feature and tourist attraction in the town of

Shanklin Shanklin () is a seaside resort town and civil parishes in England, civil parish on the Isle of Wight, England, located on Sandown Bay. Shanklin is the southernmost of three settlements which occupy the bay, and is close to Lake, Isle of Wight, ...

, 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 England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

. A wooded coastal ravine, it contains waterfalls, trees and lush vegetation, with footpaths and walkways allowing paid access for visitors, and a heritage centre explaining its history.

Geology

Shanklin Chine c1910 - Project Gutenberg eText 17296

chine A chine () is a steep-sided coastal gorge where a river flows to the sea through, typically, soft eroding cliffs of sandstone or clays. The word is still in use in central Southern England—notably in East Devon, Dorset, Hampshire and the Is ...

is a local word for a stream cutting back into a soft cliff. Formation of the chine, which cuts through Lower Greensand

Cretaceous The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 143.1 to 66 mya (unit), million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era (geology), Era, as well as the longest. At around 77.1 million years, it is the ...

sandstones, has taken place over the last 10,000 years. In the latter half of the nineteenth century, stones were laid at the top of the waterfall to arrest this progress. There are a continuous series of spring lines on the cliff faces in the chine. The Isle of Wight has a number of chines, but the largest remaining is Shanklin. With a drop of to sea level, and a length of just over , the chine covers an area of approximately .

History

Prior to the Victorian era, Shanklin was a small agricultural and fishing community, the latter nestling at the foot of the chine, and it was not until the early 19th century that it began to grow. Like most of the chines on the south of the island, Shanklin Chine was well-used by smugglers.

A romantic landscape

Beautiful Britain - The Isle of Wight - by G

The chine became one of the earliest tourist attractions on the Isle of Wight, with records of the public visiting the site to view it as far back as 1817.

Keats John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was an English poet of the second generation of Romantic poets, along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. His poems had been in publication for less than four years when he died of tub ...

found inspiration for some of his greatest poetry while staying at Shanklin in 1819 and wrote: "The wondrous Chine here is a very great Lion; I wish I had as many guineas as there have been spy-glasses in it."''The Letters of John Keats'', John Keats, Kessinger Publishing, 2004,
Google Books
/ref> It was a favourite subject for artists including

Thomas Rowlandson Thomas Rowlandson (; 13 July 1757 – 21 April 1827) was an English artist and caricaturist of the Georgian Era, noted for his political satire and social observation. A prolific artist and printmaker, Rowlandson produced both individual soc ...

and

Samuel Howitt Samuel Howitt (1756/57–1822) was an English painter, illustrator and etcher of animals, hunting, horse-racing and landscape scenes. He worked in both oil painting, oils and watercolors. Life and work Howitt was a member of an old Nottin ...

. Descriptions of the site at the time are surprisingly similar to the present day:

Second World War

During the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

the chine was taken over and used as an assault course by the Commandos whose HQ was at Upper Chine School. 40 Royal Marine Commando trained there in preparation for the

Dieppe Raid Operation Jubilee or the Dieppe Raid (19 August 1942) was a disastrous Allied amphibious attack on the German-occupied port of Dieppe in northern France, during the Second World War. Over 6,050 infantry, predominantly Canadian, supported by a ...

in 1942. A fuel pipeline for

Operation Pluto Operation Pluto (Pipeline Under the Ocean or Pipeline Underwater Transportation of Oil, also written Operation PLUTO) was an operation by British engineers, oil companies and the British Armed Forces to build oil Pipeline transport, pipelin ...

(Pipeline under the Ocean) also ran through the chine, and of pipework has been preserved at the chine. PLUTO Shanklin Chine

PLUTO, one of the great secret successes of the war, was the idea of Lord Louis Mountbatten who later became governor of the Isle of Wight. During the

Normandy landings The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on 6 June 1944 of the Allies of World War II, Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during the Second World War. Codenamed Operation Neptune and ...

in 1944, forked pipelines from the chine and Sandown carried petrol under the Channel to

Cherbourg Cherbourg is a former Communes of France, commune and Subprefectures in France, subprefecture located at the northern end of the Cotentin peninsula in the northwestern French departments of France, department of Manche. It was merged into the com ...

References

External links

Shanklin Chine
official website {{Chines on the Isle of Wight Chines of the Isle of Wight

Chine A chine () is a steep-sided coastal gorge where a river flows to the sea through, typically, soft eroding cliffs of sandstone or clays. The word is still in use in central Southern England—notably in East Devon, Dorset, Hampshire and the Is ...