Osborne – where Queen Victoria lived. | Horace the Alresford Bear

Queen Victoria was the Queen’s great grandmother. She lived in a very splendid house, Osborne on Isle of Wight. Nowadays English Heritage look after the house and grounds.

The gardens are very well looked after and had a purple and yellow theme.

We perched very carefully on the wall to look at the garden on the lower terrace.

We went into the house which was very interesting, but there were lots of humans looking round and it was rather difficult to take photos. We did however get a photograph in The Durbar room.

The Durbar Room was finished in 1891 and decorated with intricate Indian style carvings and quite amazing.

Once back outside we set off to see The Swiss Cottage.

We had to go up steps outside the cottage and along a balcony to get upstairs.

The table was set ready for afternoon tea.

Opposite the Swiss Chalet we discovered a gardener’s tool shed.

On peering through the wire fence we could see lots of small carts and wheelbarrows.

The little carts and wheelbarrows used to belong to Queen Victoria’s children, she had 9 altogether. They were all personalised with the initials of the princes and princesses.

Each of Queen Victoria’s children had their own gardening plot. We wondered if they would have grown pumpkins like the ones growing there today……

Further along we found a children’s play area with a little house that looked a bit like the Swiss Cottage.

We never miss an opportunity to whoosh down a slide, due to our soft fur we usually travel quite fast. Our human calls slides ‘sliders’ because she comes from Bristol, but as we are from Alresford we use the correct term ‘slide’.

Next we set off to find the beach. There are some lovely wood carvings next to the path. Nye posed for a photo with the red squirrel. (We have seen several red squirrels on the Isle of Wight but haven’t been able to photograph them

Queen Victoria’s bathing machine was rather fascinating. She used to get changed into a bathing costume in it and then swim from the beach.

It would have been lovely to see inside, but the front was all closed up.

There is a beach cafe just along from the Bathing Machine, where very delicious ice creams were being served. We did wonder whether Queen Victoria had ice cream at the beach.

Osborne beach; there is something calming about just sitting and looking out at the sea.

The autumn sun came out and we were able to warm our fur and not get too hot.

After leaving the beach we set off to find the ice house. If Queen Victoria did have ice cream, her kitchen staff would have had to make it fresh using ice from the ice house. Here it is!

We walked down a tunnel to view the deep well in the ground where ice was stored to keep it frozen.

I climbed up to get a closer look but Nye stayed away, he didn’t want to risk falling through the railings into the deep hole,

It was nearly time for Osborne to close and we suddenly realised we hadn’t seen The Walled Garden. So glad we remembered, as it the corner of the walled garden there were three topiary pigs.