10d. 18s. 2d. 16s. 4d.
=Accommodation Obtainable.=--Cowes--"Fountain Hotel," "The
Gloster," "Royal Marine Hotel."
=Alternative Route.=--Train from Waterloo _via_ Southampton. L. and
S.W. Railway.
Osborne House having been presented to the nation by King Edward,
portions of the buildings and grounds are, or will be, available to the
public on week days.
This stately marine residence of the late Queen Victoria is situated in
the Isle of Wight, an island remarkable for the variety and beauty of
its scenery. The Queen purchased the estate in 1845 from Lady Elizabeth
Blachford, and the palace was finished in 1851. Since that time many
additions have been made. The main gates are about three-quarters of a
mile up the hill from the ferry, and the Prince of Wales's Gate further
south, opposite the hotel. Osborne House has a melancholy interest
attached to it, for here, on January 22, 1901, Queen Victoria breathed
her last. A portion of every year was spent by the Queen at her seaside
home, which had many associations of her happy life there with her
husband, the late Prince Consort, "Albert the Good." Surrounded with
their children, they forgot the splendours and fatigues of Court, and
devoted themselves to training their family in all that was useful and
good. The Queen nearly always spoke of Osborne as "her island home." She
and Prince Albert delighted in the fact that it was their own, that they
could make their own plans, exercise their own taste in the laying out
of the gardens, and in the building--in fact, in everything in this
seaside home.
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