Yaverland

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Yaverland is a village on the Isle of Wight, just north of Sandown. It has about 200 houses, no shops and one post box. About 1/3 of a mile away from the village, behind Culver Down, is the Yaverland Manor and Church. there is a pub on Culver Down called the "Culver Haven" and an obelisk to the Earl of Yarborough.retaceous fossils are black in colour and often associated with deposits of iron pyrites. Holotype fossils have been discovered here of Yaverlandia and a pterosaur, Caulkicephalos.

The older part of the village is spread along the road to Bembridge by the Norman Church. The newer part is along the seafront, consisting entirely of a bungalow estate. The name appears to come from a local rendition of "over land" - being the land over the once-tidal causeway. An alternative derivation is from "Yar Island". In the fields below Yaverland the Time Team TV series discovered a Roman smithy. In 1545 a French force was intercepted by local levies crossing the Downs from a landing at Whitecliff Bay in order to attack Sandown Castle and link up with a force from Bonchurch. The French fought their way into Sandown but were defeated at the fort. The Isle of Wight Zoo is in Yaverland. The zoo has a tiger breeding program. The zoo is built on the remains of the Granite Fort built by Lord Palmerston as a defense against the French in 1860. The grounds were used by the military during World War II as part of the Pluto pipeline to send oil under the English Channel to France to fuel the Allied war efforts.

By the sea is the Yaverland Yacht Club and along the seashore are fossil bearing beds, which may be explored by guided walks from Dinosaur Isle. Southern Vectis bus route 10 links the village with the towns of Newport, Bembridge and Sandown, including intermediate towns.^[1]