Royal National Hospital for Diseases of the Chest opens
Chest hospital opens | 1868 | Period: Victorian
The hospital was built in 1868 and demolished in 1969. A three-light stained glass window from its chapel was taken to the church at St Lawrence in 1974. It was made by the Pre-Raphaelite firm Morris & Co., and dates from 1874.
The grounds and site of the hospital are now occupied by the Ventnor Botanic Garden which originally opened in 1972. The 22 acre garden lies at the heart of a remarkable microclimate and has an impressive collection of rare and exotic plants. Normally found in protected glasshouses, the plants thrive outdoors in geographical plantings based on subtropical zones around the world.
Admission tickets to Ventnor Botanic Gardens are available from the Ships Stores onboard or when making a ferry booking online.
Also in this Period:
- Queen Victoria Dies
- Marconi experiments with radio waves
- The Tennyson Monument unveiled
- Royal National Hospital for Diseases of the Chest opens
- Julia Margaret Cameron takes first photo's at Dimbola
- Cowes and Newport join the railway age
- Needles Old Battery built
- New Needles lighthouse planned
- Sailing race around the Isle of Wight won by America
- Charles Dickens writes David Copperfield
- Victoria and Albert buy Osborne House
- UK's first theme park opens at Blackgang Chine
- Work starts on St. Catherine's lighthouse
- Algernon Charles Swinburne