On the approach by sea, Ryde presents an attractive aspect, displayed as it is upon a hillside, with its steeply sloping streets, its conspicuous spires, and its fringe of handsome villas embowered in rich woods that enclose the town on either side. The most prominent landmark is the far-seen steeple of the parish Church in the upper part of the town, built after designs of Sir G. G. Scott, and ornamented with a fine show of modern art. Beside this stands the Town Hall, beyond which another church combines a Strawberry Hill Gothic effect, with a light colouring that at first sight suggests Oriental associations: it might do for a chapel to the Brighton Pavilion. Ryde has its fair allowance of churches and chapels of all denominations; but we need not look here for ancient dignity or picturesqueness, even the parish churches of such modern resorts as [Illustration: NEWCHURCH--THE MOTHER CHURCH OF RYDE] Ryde or Ventnor having been originally chapels of ease to some now obscure metropolis inland. Georgian solidity or Early Victorian stucco are the highest notes of antiquity in this smart and cheerful town, which at the last census, taking in its outskirts, counted 18,000 inhabitants. Church architecture, it may be said, is not the strongest point of the Island; though several of its churches have interesting remnants of Norman work; and I have heard of one native claiming for his parish steeple an unrecorded antiquity of more than 1600 years, in proof of which he showed the figures 1620 still legible on the fabric. One of the most notable ecclesiastical antiquities, Quarr Abbey, lies a pleasant couple of miles’ walk westward from Ryde. The way is by the adjoining parish of Binstead, with its modern Church preserving some fragments of the old one, originally built by the Abbot of Quarr, “because he would not have all his tenants and the inhabitants of Binstead come to trouble the Abbey Church.” A gravelled path and a lovers’ lane through a series of oak copses, giving peeps of the mainland coast, bring one in view of Quarr Abbey, whose ivied ruins are now to be restored. The name Quarr or Quarraria is said to come from the Binstead quarries of Upper Eocene limestone, that figures largely in Winchester Cathedral. The abbey was founded in the middle of the twelfth century by Baldwin de Redvers, in fulfilment of a vow made during his banishment for taking Maud’s part against Stephen, after which his head was lifted up again, so that he became Lord of the Island and Earl of Devon. He was the first to be buried here, as later were other persons of note, among them the Lady Cicely, second daughter of Edward IV., who had married a gentleman of the Island. Among the numerous traditions attached to the abbey, there is one that connects a wood called Eleanor’s Grove with the queen of Henry II., said to have been imprisoned here.