Freshwater Bay, Tennyson Down and Farringford

The lovely seaward down next to Freshwater Bay, Tennyson Down, has been named after Tennyson, the Poet Laureate of the Victorian age, because he walked here almost daily during the 40 years from 1853 when he lived at Farringford close by (remarking that the air was 'worth six pence a pint'). Among the most famous poems he composed here are 'The Charge of the Light Brigade' and 'The Idylls of the King'.

As you follow the gentle rise of the down, the whole western approaches are spread before you with wonderful views left over the Channel and right over the Solent. Preserved by the National Trust, Tennyson Down is rich in grasses and flowers (including vetches, cowslips, bee orchids, and carline thistles), while buzzards, kestrels, reintroduced sea eagles, ring ouzels, and cliff-nesting seabirds frequent the area.

The first settlers farmed here about 3,800 BC, leaving the remains of an unfinished burial chamber or long barrow, followed later by Bronze Age round burial mounds. Continuing along the down brings you to Tennyson's Monument, a tall granite Celtic cross erected in 1897. Walking through woods and fields then leads to Farringford, the late Georgian house which was home to Tennyson from 1853 until his death in 1892. Returning towards Freshwater, you pass the pretty country-cottage-style church of St Agnes, whose site was given by Lord Tennyson, son of the poet.

Acknowledgment: Text derived from the Out and Out Series; Discovering the Countryside on Foot. Pictures courtesy of Wikipedia.