Priory Bay Hotel, Isle of Wight by Kate Morris

When we were young children, my sister and I were packed off to the Isle of Wight for an annual summer holiday. We were sent to stay with an ancient couple, the parents of a nanny. We idled away the days on the windy seafront of Seaview in our navy and red swimming suits with attached white skirts. We paddled, made sandcastles, whipped each other with slimy pieces of seaweed, and jumped in and out of rock pools. We ate old fashioned food like boiled eggs, salad cream and beetroot salad. The whole experience could not have been less glamourous.

Thirty years later I visited the Priory Bay Hotel, Seaview. It had been recommended by a newspaper as one of the best fifty hotels in Britain for catering for children’s needs. The ferry from Portsmouth to Fishbourne is exactly how I remembered it: large, cumbersome, unmodernised, with a canteen selling packets of crisps and strong cups of tea. The windows are still grimy and rain-splashed.

The Priory Bay Hotel instantly became my favourite British seaside hotel, despite the fact that I don’t have children. It’s built above it’s own sheltered sandy bay on a site where Cluniac monks established a monastery in the 10th century and, later, Tudor farmers and Georgian gentry built in the same spot. In the gardens are terraces where guests cans eat out during the summer months, and a seafood café (open in the summer) overlooking the bay. There is also a pretty swimming pool and a golf course. The staff are friendly, the food is delicious and the atmosphere relaxed. Rooms three, four and five are spacious and have the best sea views.

A short walk along the beach will take you to the Seaview Hotel, which serves a superior pub lunch or a more formal meal in the dining room. However, my memory of blow-up plastic rings, triangular union jacks, and of crowds of people was no longer true. The streets of Seaview were almost deserted, not a blow-up ring or a stick of candy floss in sight; although we were there before the school holidays. Priory Bay and the Seaview Hotel are like oases in an otherwise uninspiring part of the Isle of Wight, with its depressing rows of suburban Victorian houses, and ugly towns.