Shide is a small settlement on the

Isle of Wight The Isle of Wight ( ) is a Counties of England, county in the English Channel, off the coast of Hampshire, from which it is separated by the Solent. It is the List of islands of England#Largest islands, largest and List of islands of England#Mo ...

, some of which is considered to be in the Newport conurbation. Shide Hill House, which was demolished in the 1970s, was situated with its back towards St. George's Lane and Pan Chalk Pit with the reception rooms looking westwards across the Blackwater Road, river and railway to the open fields on the other side of the valley. It was the home and workplace of

John Milne John Milne (30 December 1850 – 31 July 1913) was a British geologist and mining engineer who worked on a horizontal seismograph. Biography Milne was born in Liverpool, England, the only child of John Milne of Milnrow, and at first raised ...

(1850–1913), inventor of the horizontal

pendulum A pendulum is a weight suspended from a pivot so that it can swing freely. When a pendulum is displaced sideways from its resting, equilibrium position, it is subject to a restoring force due to gravity that will accelerate it back toward th ...

seismograph after he retired from the

Imperial College of Engineering The Imperial College of Engineering (工部大学校, ''Kōbudaigakkō'') was a Japanese institution of higher education that was founded during the Meiji Era. The college was established under the auspices of the Ministry of Public Works for ...

Tokyo, Japan Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

. Still left today is the Gatehouse to the estate at the bottom of St George's Lane and the Domestic Quarters, now known as Milne House, which were attached to the original building going up the lane. The Observatory, housed in the stable block, was dismantled and moved to Oxford in 1919 when Tone Milne returned to Japan and the estate was sold for development. However, the Laboratory Block still exists and is the building facing into the fields towards Blackwater. The

Isle of Wight County Cricket Ground Newclose County Cricket Ground is the county cricket ground for the Isle of Wight, located between Newport and Blackwater on the eastern bank of the River Medina. As the county ground of the Isle of Wight Cricket Board, Newclose hosts county ...

is just south of Shide. There is a cycleway between Shide and

Merstone Merstone is a hamlet on the Isle of Wight. It is home to Merston Manor, built in 1605 in the Jacobean style by Edward Cheeke, and rebuilt in the Victorian era. Merston Manor was first mentioned in the Domesday Book, and the present structure is a ...

, and public transport is provided by

Southern Vectis Southern Vectis is a bus operator on the Isle of Wight. The company was founded in 1921 as "Dodson and Campbell" and became the "Vectis Bus Company" in 1923. The company was purchased by the Southern Railway before being nationalised in 1969. ...

buses on route 2, 3 and 38. Shide railway station was opened in 1875 and closed in 1956.

Shide Quarry

Shide Quarry, located to the east of the village was quarried for chalk during the first half of 20th Century. The prominent west-facing slope is a major landmark on Newport's skyline. The site is now a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and Local Nature Reserve owned by the

Isle of Wight Council The Isle of Wight Council is a unitary authority covering the Isle of Wight, an island in the south of England. It is currently made up of 39 seats. Since the 2021 election, there has been an 'Alliance' coalition administration of Independents, ...

. It is open to the public. The site was notified in 1971 for its biological features which show all stages of succession from bare

chalk Chalk is a soft, white, porous, sedimentary carbonate rock. It is a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite and originally formed deep under the sea by the compression of microscopic plankton that had settled to the sea floor. Ch ...

rock to

Ash Ash or ashes are the solid remnants of fires. Specifically, ''ash'' refers to all non-aqueous, non- gaseous residues that remain after something burns. In analytical chemistry, to analyse the mineral and metal content of chemical samples, ash ...

woodland.Shide Chalk Pit: IW Council page
It is one of 41 SSSIs on the Isle of Wight.

References

Natural England citation sheet
The following books both contain information on Shide, Shide Hill House and Professor John 'Earthquake' Milne between 1895 and 1919. John Milne - the father of modern seismology - A L K D Herbert-Gustar and P A Nott published 1980 and John Milne - the man who measured the shaking earth - Paul Kabrna published 2007

External links

Celebrating Professor John Milne
- information on the famous Isle of Wight Seismologist and the Shide Earthquake Observatory

Brian J. Mitchell, including a description of plaque honouring John Milne and photograph of monument. {{coord, 50.692, N, 1.292, W, type:city_region:GB-IOW, display=title Populated places on the Isle of Wight Sites of Special Scientific Interest on the Isle of Wight Newport, Isle of Wight