Farringford House is a large manor house, with beautiful gardens, a large front garden where helicopters land, a restaurant called the 'Bistro' which has regular livebands and a previous Masterchef programme winner as a chef, outside swimming pool, tennis courts, holiday homes and a 9 hole golf course, located at in Bedbury Lane, Freshwater Bay on the Western tip of the Isle of Wight in England. There is farm next to it called 'Farringford Farm' but this is privately owned separate to the Farringford owners by the Fidlers' family. It is currently being restored having been a Hotel since leaving the Tennyson family;s ownership in the 1940s, when it is completed (2013?)it will be used as a Tennyson study centre and a venue for concerts, poetry readings, workshops of various kinds and a a Romantic place to be Married and hold wedding receptions. It is rumoured to have a room connected with Freshwater Bay's own Dimbola Lodge. [1]
It was also the home of Poet Laureate Alfred Lord Tennyson who resided here during much of his tenure as Poet laureate until his death in 1892. Some of the surrounding houses, particularly those in Middleton at the start of Moons Hill are connected with the Farringford's history and said to be home to servants. The houses at the end of Queens Road, the junction near the farm used to be stables where the Farringford's horses where kept.
Southern Vectis' Needles Breezer Open Top bus has a stop outside the Farringford and this is the only bus that goes down Bedbury Lane towards Alum Bay.
Tennyson wrote of Farringford:
“Where, far from noise and smoke of town
I watch the twilight falling brown,
All round a careless-ordered garden,
Close to the ridge of a noble down.”
Tennyson rented Farringford in 1853, and then bought it in 1856.[2] He found that there were too many starstruck tourists who pestered him in Farringford, so he moved to "Aldworth", a stately home on a hill known as Blackdown between Lurgashall and Fernhurst, about 2 km south of Haslemere in West Sussex in 1869. However, he returned to Farringford to spend the winters.
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