Freshwater

Freshwater is where the Isle of Wight runs out of island and gives up gracefully. Robert Hooke was born here and left for London at thirteen, which tells you most of what you need to know about the pace. Tennyson came the other way, walked the down every day until they named it after him, and the place has been quietly congratulating itself ever since. It is a village of bungalows above a fossil beach, and it has absolutely no intention of becoming anything else.