Isle of Wight

The Isle of Wight /ˈaɪl əv ˈwaɪt/ is a county and the largest and second most populous island in England. It is located in the English Channel, about 4 mi (6 km) off the coast of Hampshire and is separated from mainland Great Britain by the Solent. The island has several resorts which have been holiday destinations since Victorian times.

Until 1995, like Jersey and Guernsey, the island had a Governor.

Home to the poets Swinburne and Tennyson and to Queen Victoria, who built her much-loved summer residence and final home Osborne House at East Cowes, the island has a maritime and industrial tradition including boat building, sail making, the manufacture of flying boats, the world's first hovercraft, and the testing and development of Britain's space rockets. The Isle hosts annual festivals including the Bestival and the Isle of Wight Festival, which, in 1970, was the largest rock music event ever held. The island has well-conserved wildlife and some of the richest cliffs and quarries for dinosaur fossils in Europe.

Isle of Wight (album)

Isle of Wight was a posthumous live album by Jimi Hendrix, released in November 1971 by Polydor in the U.K. only. The album documents Hendrix's performance at the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival on August 30, 1970, his last performance in England before his death in September. The album was engineered by Carlos Ohlms (a British based engineer). The record company did not use a picture from the Isle of Wight concert. The cover photo is from a live concert from Berlin, Deutschlandhalle, September 4, 1970. The album spent only two weeks in the U.K. albums chart, peaking at No. 17.

Isle of Wight contains just part of the concert, but this release has a unique mix compared to the Blue Wild Angel: Live at the Isle of Wight 2002 release). The entire performance was released on the 2002 album Blue Wild Angel: Live at the Isle of Wight.

Track listing

All songs written and composed by Jimi Hendrix, except where noted. 

Personnel

Isle of Wight (UK Parliament constituency)

Coordinates: 50°41′02″N 1°19′12″W / 50.684°N 1.320°W / 50.684; -1.320

Isle of Wight (/ˈwaɪt/) is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2001 by Andrew Turner of the Conservative Party.

Created by the Great Reform Act for the 1832 general election it covers the whole of the Isle of Wight and has had the largest electorate in all elections from 1983 onwards.

Boundaries

The Isle of Wight forms a single constituency of the House of Commons. The constituency covers exactly the same land as the ceremonial county of the Isle of Wight and the area administered by the unitary authority, Isle of Wight Council which consists almost wholly of the island itself plus a few uninhabited rocks.

With an electorate of 110,924 (as of 2010), the constituency has by far the largest electorate in the UK, more than 50% above the England average of 71,537. This is five times the size of the smallest electorate (Na h-Eileanan an Iar, formerly known as the Western Isles), despite the Isle of Wight having some of the same problems as other island constituencies.

Isle of Wight (Maryland)

Isle of Wight is an island in Worcester County, just west of Ocean City in Maryland. It is designated by the state of Maryland as a Wildlife Management Area.

External links

References

Coordinates: 38°23′37.3″N 75°6′27″W / 38.393694°N 75.10750°W / 38.393694; -75.10750

HM Prison Isle of Wight

HMP Isle of Wight is a prison on the Isle of Wight, UK, combining the two island prisons, Albany and Parkhurst. The two former prisons along with Camp Hill were merged in 2009 and each site still retained its old name. Across the three sites there were nearly 1,700 prisoners making it one of the largest prisons in the country. The reorganization took effect on 1 April 2009. In March 2013 Camp Hill closed, reducing the overall prison population by 595.

History

The idea for re-organising the three island prisons was suggested in October 2008 as a way of improving efficiency across the three sites. The plans attracted criticism from prison officers who feared for their jobs and claimed with fewer staff on duty, the safety of staff, inmates and the public was being put at risk. The chairman of the Prison Officer's Association claimed that the main aim of the move was to save around £1.1 million through natural wastage and scrapping eight principal officers' posts. On announcement of the proposals names for new prison were suggested as HMP Solent, HMP Mountbatten, HMP Vectis and the tongue in cheek suggestion "Barry Island" after the governor sent to implement the cluster Barry Greenberry who left in October 2010 to work for the private sector. However none of these new names were implemented and the new name HMP Isle of Wight was announced in March 2009. It was also stated that the individual sites would still retain their old names.

Isle of Wight (disambiguation)

The Isle of Wight is an island and ceremonial county in England.

It may also refer to:

In England:

In the United States of America:

See also

History of the Isle of Wight

The Isle of Wight is rich in historical and archaeological sites. These range from prehistoric fossil beds which include dinosaur remains, to dwellings and artefacts of the Bronze Age, Iron Age, Roman period and beyond.

During the Mesolithic period, "sea levels in the North Sea and the English Channel were some 30 to 40m lower than those of today – Britain was a peninsula of northern Europe." The Isle is geologically linked to Armorica and there has been some cross-channel tilts that has affected sea level as the Channel can be considered as an active geological fault area. The island was formed at the end of the last Ice age. The River Solent was the largest tributary of the Channel River that drained the Hampshire Basin from the Early Pleistocene or late Pliocene. A rise in global sea level flooded the former river valley of the Solent to the north and the future English Channel to the south. This cut Wight off from the island of Britain and the Continental landmass. Once open to the sea, tidal scouring widened the Solent: the sequence of tidal ingress (whether from east, west or south) remains unclear. The English Channel flooded about 9,000 years ago.