Wootton

By Local Government Board Order No.31436, 1894

Wootton civil parish was added to Whippingham and by subsequent order part of North Arreton township was annexed to Whippingham.

Wootton

A village with a station 1 mile south from the village on the Southern Railway about 4 miles west of Ryde 4 miles NE Newport in rural deanery of West Wight archdeaconry of IOW diocese of Portsmouth. It has the motherbank on the north and an inlet of the sea on the east, the latter crossed by a causeway on the high road from Ryde to Newport. The church of St. Edmund is an ancient building of stone with some Norman remains and consists of chancel, nave, organ chamber, a western tower containing one bell; there are marble tablets to the White & Shute families and several stained glass windows were presented c.1903; the church was restored in 1883 at a cost of about 500 Pounds and numerous alterations and repairs were subsequently carried out under the direction of Percy Stone FSA, architect of Newport; a fully equipped electric lighting plant the gift of Mrs. Carnt of this parish was installed in 1919. The church affords 130 sitting. The register dates from 1756. The living is a rectory net yearly value 300 Pounds including 43 acres of glebe and residence in the gift of the representatives of late Capt. Duncan Macpherson RN and held since 1923 by the Rev. George Cyril Seymour B.A. of St. John’s College, Durham. There is a burial ground at Wootton Common attached to St. Marks Church, Wootton Bridge.

On the one side of the banks the river are irregular & clothed from the very waters edge with flourishing oak woods. Fern Hill is the residence of Maj. Charles Gordon Brodie MC. The mansion stands at the head of a wide spreading park of 75 acres sloping to the creek, which is fringed with a variety of trees and plantations of handsome growth.

Westwood [Brocks Copse] is the residence of Mrs. Carnt. Col. Stephenson Robert Clarke CB JP is Lord of the Manor. The other principle land-owners are the trustees of the late Lt. Col. Sir George Lindsey Holford KCVO CIE CBE; Maj. Charles Gordon Brodie MC FRCS Esq. Fernhill; Lt. Col. Stanley Chatfield-Clarke VD DL 1 Oakfield [Station Road].

The pop. In 1921 was 179; in 1925 the conventual’s district of St Marks was amalgamated with the ecclesiastical parish of Wootton.

Wootton Bridge

Is a pretty village adjoining this parish but is situated in the ecclesiastical parishes of Wootton & Binstead. Formerly in the ecclesiastical parish of Arreton this village was annexed to the ecclesiastical parish of Wootton in 1925. There are two Wesleyan chapels and a United Methodist chapel erected in 1897.

Parish Clerk Ernest Gorman

Post; M.O; T & TED office Wootton Bridge (letter should have IOW added) George Mew postmaster

Council School (under Education Act 1902) built in 1867 for 200 children and since enlarged in 1906 for 250. Frank Stears – master

Magistrates of the County of Southampton (Isle of Wight) division; Mrs. Brodie of Fern-hill, Wootton Bridge Deputy Lieutenants of Isle of Wight (not magistrates); Lt. Col. Stanley Chatfield-Clarke V.D. of Oakfield, [Station Road], Wootton.

Up until then even the village school and High Street was in the parish of Arreton. By extension of the parishes a second churchyard at Wootton Common, where the crossroads are one leads to Newport (Whiterails), another toward Arreton (Briddlesford Road), a third called Park Road. Here there was an Iron Church dedicated to St. Michael’s and All Angels. This building was demolished in 1910. The church of St Marks was erected in 1909 and contains 200 sittings. Rev. Thomas Atherton Bernard Causton of Bishop Wilson’s Theological School has been in charge since 1917 and resident in Wootton Bridge.

Source: Kelly’s Directories 1927