Lake is a large village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

located on Sandown Bay, on the

Isle of Wight The Isle of Wight (Help:IPA/English, /waɪt/ Help:Pronunciation respelling key, ''WYTE'') is an island off the south coast of England which, together with its surrounding uninhabited islets and Skerry, skerries, is also a ceremonial county. T ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

. It is six miles south-east of Newport situated between

Sandown Sandown is a seaside resort and civil parishes in England, civil parish on the south-east coast of the Isle of Wight, England. The neighbouring resort of Shanklin and the settlement of Lake, Isle of Wight, Lake are sited just to the south of t ...

and

Shanklin Shanklin () is a seaside resort town and civil parishes in England, civil parish on the Isle of Wight, England, located on Sandown Bay. Shanklin is the southernmost of three settlements which occupy the bay, and is close to Lake, Isle of Wight, ...

, and to the east of the hamlet of Apse Heath.

Name

Lake is named after the Old English "Lacu" referring to the creek that ran along, and has been artificially widened into what is now Scotchells Brook, which is between the Isle of Wight Airport, the Morrisons Superstore and the ''Spithead Industrial Park''.

History

The high street that runs through Lake has not changed much since the early 20th century. However, the village war memorial, constructed in 1920, has been relocated behind the Fairway Bus Shelter due to having been run down twice by carelessly driven lorries. The thatched cottage at Merrie Gardens dates from the 17th century and is the oldest surviving building in Lake.

Geography

Lake is a seaside village situated above the cliffs on Sandown bay, it stands at an elevation of above sea-level. Lake's beach or 'Welcome Beach' has golden sands and reached by a steep path down the

sandstone Sandstone is a Clastic rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sand ...

cliffs to the Revetment. It has two cafes (Hinks and Strollers), beach huts, a Sea Scout hut and inshore lifeboat. A large public park called Los Altos starts at the boundary between Lake and

. Another large park called Lake Cliff Gardens borders the cliffs that back onto the beach and stretches between Lake and Shanklin. Local wildlife includes Pipistrelle bats at Los Altos, kestrels along the Cliff Path and Common Toads which spawn in the disused reservoir behind the Mall. The

wetlands A wetland is a distinct semi-aquatic ecosystem whose groundcovers are flooded or saturated in water, either permanently, for years or decades, or only seasonally. Flooding results in oxygen-poor ( anoxic) processes taking place, especially ...

of the River Yar are an

SSSI A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain, or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland, is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle ...

supporting newts, voles and

wildfowl The Anatidae are the biological family of water birds that includes ducks, geese, and swans. The family has a cosmopolitan distribution, occurring on all the world's continents except Antarctica. These birds are adapted for swimming, floating o ...

Facilities

Flickr - ronsaunders47 - ISLE OF WIGHT BEACH HUTS

The village has the Broadlea primary school at Blackpan and The Bay School (Church of England primary and secondary) at the north end of the Fairway. There are several pubs including The Stag, plus The Porter Club (formerly Lake Working Men's Club) and a Town Guild. There were recently two pubs in the village and many other shops and restaurants. Sandown & Shanklin Golf Course is behind the Academy School and the Rugby Club in front.

Religion

The village has a

Methodist Church Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a Protestant Christianity, Christian Christian tradition, tradition whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's brother ...

which was opened in 1956 and upgraded from 2009 to 2011 with the addition of a church hall. The old church, built in 1877, complete with a hall and schoolroom (added in 1923) is now a multi-purpose building with both halls being converted into housing. The

Anglican Anglicanism, also known as Episcopalianism in some countries, is a Western Christianity, Western Christian tradition which developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the ...

Church of the Good Shepherd, which was constructed designed in 1892, is also in the village. Construction finished in May 1894 and it replaced the former ''Little Iron Church'' of 1876. There also is a Kingdom Hall of

Jehovah's Witnesses Jehovah's Witnesses is a Christian denomination that is an outgrowth of the Bible Student movement founded by Charles Taze Russell in the nineteenth century. The denomination is nontrinitarian, millenarian, and restorationist. Russell co-fou ...

Transport

Bus services are provided by

Southern Vectis Southern Vectis is a bus operator on the Isle of Wight, founded in 1921 as Dodson and Campbell. It became the Vectis Bus Company in 1923. The company was purchased by Southern Railway before being nationalised in 1969. In 1987, the company wa ...

; bus routes 2, 3 and 8 run between Newport,

Ryde Ryde is an English seaside town and civil parish on the north-east coast of the Isle of Wight. The built-up area had a population of 24,096 according to the 2021 Census. Its growth as a seaside resort came after the villages of Upper Ryde and ...

Ventnor Ventnor () is a seaside resort town and civil parishes in England, civil parish established in the Victorian era on the southeast coast of the Isle of Wight, England, from Newport, Isle of Wight, Newport. It is situated south of St Boniface D ...

and

Bembridge Bembridge is a village and civil parishes in England, civil parish located on the easternmost point of the Isle of Wight. It had a population of 3,848 according to the 2001 census of the United Kingdom, leading to the implausible claim by so ...

. Night buses operate on Friday and Saturday nights. Having opened in 1987, Lake railway station was the newest on the island until the construction of a station at Smallbrook Junction in 1994. The station is placed in the heart of a quiet residential area close to Lake Cliff Gardens. It is a stop on the Island Line, between Ryde Pier Head and . Services are operated by

South Western Railway South Western Railway Limited, trading as South Western Railway (SWR), is the British state-owned train operating company that took over the services of the South Western Railway (2017–2025), operator of the same name from FirstGroup and MTR ...

, under the ''Island Line'' brand.

References

External links

Some current photographs
* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20110904215507/http://www.bags4vacs.co.uk/27101.html Hilton Price's Nostalgic Lake {{authority control Villages on the Isle of Wight Civil parishes in the Isle of Wight