Shanklin to Ventnor walk
4.6 miles/7.3km | 3.5 hours | moderate
STAGE 1
Start at the 12th-century church of St Blasius on the southerly edge of Old Shanklin Village. Admire the beautiful lychgate, walk through the grounds and cross over the boundary wall at the back of the church to follow the waymarked Worsley Trail uphill through two fields.
The path enters woodland and to your right is Holme Copse, a maturing mix of oak, ash and hazel trees that were planted in 2004. At this point, the track is something of a woodland corridor, providing important links to other habitats for dormice and red squirrels. As you emerge into the open, keep ahead and follow footpath SS10 (signposted for Wroxall).
STAGE 2
Go through the gate directly ahead of you and turn sharp left uphill along footpath SS12. The climb soon eases off at a brow where St Martin’s Down and Shanklin Down meet. Due to the warmer climate on the Island, look out for flowers that often emerge a few weeks earlier than elsewhere in the UK, including the violet-blue blooms of devil’s-bit scabious and the low-growing salad burnet.
Continue straight on, contouring south-west along the ridgeline, the land falling away to your right and thickets of gorse to your left where swallows are highly likely to flit past at eyelevel. The scenery here is simply stunning.
Let your imagination go and you can almost see the joins where nature has knitted this rolling landscape together; the ridges of the downs may resemble the arms of inviting sofas while in between them the ground falls away into crumpled, pillow-like geometric sweeps. It’s a spectacle that invites you to ease yourself into the chalk grasslands for a day’s walking.
STAGE 3
You will reach a small car park by an access lane to the transmitter masts on St Boniface Down. Turn left here, keeping the fences to your right, and make your way on to Nansen Hill. To the north you will see the entire sweep of Sandown Bay, all the way to the distant chalk finger of Culver Down, some six miles away. To the south, the English Channel spans the horizon.
This part of the route is a ‘there-and-back again’ section; walk down the hill as far as you wish, as if making for the sea, before returning to the ridgeline. Nansen Hill will certainly bite into your calf muscles as it descends (and ascends) 100m in just 300m.
Migrant birds, exhausted and hungry, which make landfall on Nansen Hill will find that nature’s kitchen has laid on quite a larder, for the high downs are rich in insect life that thrives on a sympathetic landscape of cattle-grazed downland. Nansen Hill is part of the Ventnor Downs SSSI and the chalk grasslands are magnificent for butterflies and orchids in springtime. You may spot the Glanville fritillary butterfly (chequered orange and brown) rising up from the landslip areas at the foot of the hill, for the Isle of Wight represents the northern limit of its range. Common spotted orchids can be found on the wave-cut grass ridges, known as terracettes, on the higher north-facing slopes. The bluebell displays are truly spectacular.
STAGE 4
Returning to the carpark at the top of St Boniface Down, bear left in front of the transmitter mast, walking clockwise around it with the fence on your right. There is a bench in front of the masts where you can sit and take in the view west towards another ensemble of ridges around St Catherine’s and Stenbury Downs. You may spot a herd of grazing feral goats. There are about 30 and they were introduced to keep the scrub and holm oak in check and allow wildflowers to thrive.
STAGE 5
Head downhill, zig-zagging into a huge, funnel-shaped valley in the shadow of the hump-like outline of Ventnor Down. At this point you are following in the footsteps of Mahatma Gandhi, who would go walking with his landlady’s daughter during a stay in Ventnor. The path runs beside a fence, passes through a gate, then descends steeply to emerge by an industrial estate located in the former Ventnor railway station. At the end of Old Station Road, cross the road and almost opposite take Grove Road, which winds down into Ventnor.
Stop off for a pint at the cosy Crab and Lobster Tap near the bottom of Grove Road. For 200 years the only pub in Ventnor. Otherwise, head right onto the High Street where you can find cafes and restaurants. Or continue into Pier Street and downhill to Ventnor Esplanade where you will be spoilt for choice for ice cream to enjoy on the beach.
