Named after Alfred Lord Tennyson, former Poet Laureate and resident of the Isle of Wight, rhe whole Tennyson Trail is 15 miles long, from Carisbrooke Castle to The Needles, passing the monument to the poet up on the magnificent cliffs. The trail ascends Bowcombe Down and sets out along the ridge line to Newbarn Down where it enters Brighstone Forest, then turns westwards and follows the side of Brighstone Down before crossing Lynch Lane and climbing Westover Down.

Calbourne is a small village on the road between Freshwater and Shalfleet. It is mainly known for Winkle Street, a picturesque lane with a stream running alongside. There is a church of which the origin is not entirely clear, but it is known that the land was granted by King Egbert in AD 826 and it is thought that a church was built soon after. The current church was built in the 13th Century.

The name Calbourne is derived from the stream rising on the downs above the village and running through Newbridge and Shalfleet into the Solent at Newtown. The village was originally known as Cawelburn. The name is said to arise from cawel being the old name for kale and burn meaning stream.

Calbourne is best known for Winkle Street, a tourist attraction which seems to have come to prominence in the 1920s. The actual name of the road is Barrington Row, which is named after the owners (until 1832) of the Swainston Estate (to the east of Calbourne). The origin of the name is not really known, suggestions include that it was named after John Winkle, rector of Shalfleet 1339 - 1347, that the name 'winkle' meant a lane that turns a corner and leads nowhere, that the English word winkle meant to twinkle, or that it was where empty winkle shells were deposited, having been collected from Newtown Creek. 
  
The mounds, or barrows, on Mottistone Down are burial sites that date from the Early Bronze Age, around 4,000 years ago. The dead were often cremated and their remains buried in urns. Later a ditch was dug and the material used to construct a mound to cover the graves. An urn was removed from the first barrow in 1817.

England - Isle of Wight - Countryside

View a road map to the starting point of this walk.