Up the hill from Shanklin’s seafront hotels, the Old Village is a short run of thatched cottages, tea rooms and pubs at the top of Shanklin Chine. Chine is the local word for a ravine cut by a stream through a soft cliff, and this wooded one drops past a 45-foot waterfall to the beach. Visitors have been coming since at least 1817, so it’s one of the island’s oldest tourist attractions. Entry is paid now, and the chine is closed in winter. In July 1868 the American poet Longfellow stayed at the thatched Crab Inn and wrote the verse for the drinking fountain outside. At the bottom of the chine you come out by Shanklin beach, where you can pick up the Isle of Wight Coastal Path.
