Osborne on the Isle of Wight

The Isle of Wight is a short ferry ride away from Portsmouth as I discovered a couple of weeks ago when visiting my cousin Jeanne for the first time. Keen to visit Osborne, I was pleased to find it was just down the road from Jeanne's house, enabling us to visit it together. It's an absolutely fabulous place. The website refers to 'Osborne' not 'Osborne House', the English Heritage book on the house is called Osborne, but uses both. I have quoted information from the website here:

'"It is impossible to imagine a prettier spot" said Queen Victoria of Osborne House, her palatial holiday home on the Isle of Wight. It's possible to visit Victoria and Albert's private apartments, their bathing beach and children's play-cottage for an intimate glimpse of royal family life. With more time and a less rain, we could have strolled through the garden terraces where the stunning views across the Solent reminded Prince Albert of the Bay of Naples.
Osborne reflects Queen Victoria and Prince Albert's passions, tastes and style. Ornate furnishings and artefacts from The Royal Collection fill rooms and corridors where Victoria entertained heads of state, inventors, princess and princesses and ruled the vast British Empire.'
The Osborne estate was Queen Victoria and Prince Albert's  escape from court life in London and Windsor, we find lots about them from the house and its contents. For instance they made sure they spent their birthdays at Osborne and there's a record of presents they gave each other, often large statues, along with affectionate notes. The estate was bought in 1845, and after Albert's death in 1861, Queen Victoria continued to visit the house, making changes she thought he would have approved of. After her death in 1901, the house was opened to public in 1904.
There are so many things to photograph, I've selected my favourites, including lots of light fittings which were operated by candlelight until September 1894 when most of the building was lit by Edison and Swan lamps. Detailed information has been provided by the book on the estate sold in the shop by English Heritage. My favourite light fitting was this one:

 It's in the audience room, it's a coloured glass and ormolu (gilt brass) chandelier representing convolvulus (Albert's favourite flower) and arum lilies climbing out of a basket.

I think the one below is in the council room , it's where lots of things happened, including where Alexander Graham Bell demonstrated his telephone on 14 January 1878.

There's a lovely view of a fountain from that room, a bit truncated by a blind.

The drawing room had the most fantastic chandeliers, with three hanging from the ceiling, and more free standing, ones called pedestal chandeliers, they were displayed at the Great Exhibition in 1851.

You can see in the photo above that the mirror enables many reflections of the chandelier to be seen.

Above a close up showing the ceiling ornamentation

Another general view of the room, you can see a pedestal chandelier on the left. The drawing room also contains statues of Victoria's children carved by Mary Thornycroft.
From upstairs windows, tantalising views of the formal garden can be seen:

and this one, showing the fountain glimpsed from the ground floor

At the head of the grand staircase is the large fresco 'Neptune Resigning the Empire of the Seas to Britannia' by William Dyce who came to Osborne in 1847 to paint it. At the time it was meant to demonstrate Britain's supremacy as a world power. Neptune, in a shell chariot drawn by three seahorses, hands his crown via Mercury (messenger to the gods) to Britannia who already holds Neptune's trident.

The Durbar Room at Osborne is the size of a medieval hall in the Indian style. I found a useful link with some excellent photographs by M P Osborne which he'd written for an OU essay, well worth a look.

The dining table with the minstrel's gallery overlooking it is really splendid, although superlatives fail when trying to describe the room. The chairs are very close together, except at the ends of the table.

Above the deeply coffered ceiling, and below the peacock over the fireplace which took 26 craftsmen over 500 hours to make.

An interesting article from 1893 about the Durbar Room

From the opulence of the house, we went outside and discovered the rain had stopped for a while.

At ground level, it was harder to photograph the plantings

In the formal plantings, there's a yellow and purple theme

and this one seen below, apparently this is a scheme of planting devised by Albert.

The fountains are wonderful

especially the Andromeda Fountain seen from the Pavilion  Terrace by John Bell, surrounded by eight marine monsters by William Theed, cast in 1858-60.

From the terrace gardens, there's a choice of  walks, to Osborne Beach, the Walled Garden and the Swiss Cottage and museum. Not having time to do all three, we chose the latter. The Swiss Cottage Garden was part of an educational programme Albert designed for his children who each had a plot in which to grow vegetables, fruits and flowers sold to Albert as a commercial exercise. There's also a wildflower garden managed as such for over 100 years. There's a Swiss Cottage where children could cook meals and a museum built in 1862, and filled with all sorts of specimens.

I was drawn to the birds, particularly the Great Bustard seen below

and this cupboard of ducks with their eggs

I'm hoping to make a return visit next year, I've only skimmed the surface of the place. It was such a pleasure to meet Jeanne after a gap of more years than I'll mention here! We had lots in common, and it was wonderful to catch up. Thanks also to Lyn for coming along.