Discover Ryde: hotels for your stay

Ryde on the Isle of Wight can be explored through three distinct themes: the coast, town history and collections. When looking for a hotel in Ryde, these interests can help shape your stay: would you like to focus on the pier and seafront, follow a self-guided heritage trail or explore collections with regional and specialist themes? The following stops offer some specific ideas.

Coast and Ryde Pier

Appley Tower, a tower dating from the early to mid-19th century, stands by the seafront east of the Esplanade. A 330-metre-long pier stretches over the sand at Ryde Beach. Both offer a distinctive feature by the sea: the tower as a historic structure, and the pier as a clearly measured stretch across the sand.

Ryde Pier’s history includes several dated milestones. The original wooden structure opened in 1814; by 1842, the pier had reached its present length of almost half a mile. A third pier was built to carry a double-track railway line from the pier head to Ryde Esplanade. So the pier’s history is about more than its length: it also encompasses the original construction and the transport purpose of another pier.

Explore Ryde on foot: the Heritage Audio Trail

The Ryde Heritage Audio Trail is a self-guided walk through Ryde. It starts on Lind Street, continues via St Thomas Square and Union Street to the pier, then follows the Esplanade to the end of Canoe Lake. The route continues along the Esplanade and St Thomas Street to St Thomas Church, where it ends. Allow around two hours to walk the entire trail. It was designed to be accessible to wheelchair users and mobility scooter users; however, check the route conditions separately. The trail links named places in a set sequence, offering a different way to discover Ryde from focusing on a single museum or coastal attraction.

Museums with different themes

The Museum of Ryde is housed in a restored historic building. It covers events, people and places that have shaped the town on the Isle of Wight. The building also contains a rare indoor ice cellar. The museum also includes more than 9,500 searchable photographs and images of people and places in Ryde; this number may change as the archive develops. The town’s history and the image collection offer two different ways to explore Ryde: through influential events and people, and through views of the town and its residents.

The Donald McGill Saucy Seaside Postcard Museum has a different focus. It displays a collection acquired in 2009. Donald McGill created more than 12,000 unique works of art from 1904 to 1962. The collection’s acquisition and the artist’s working years therefore provide separate chronological reference points.

The Isle of Wight Bus & Coach Museum focuses on transport heritage. It houses island buses and coaches dating from 1927, as well as more recent examples; more than 20 vehicles are on display. A tea bar is located in the single-decker café bus, the “Shanklin Steamer”. This clearly distinguishes its focus from the town history and art collections: here, the emphasis is on vehicles and their history.

There are several themes to explore as you plan your visit: the pier and Appley Tower for architectural and coastal history, the Audio Trail for a self-guided walk, and the museums for town history, postcard art or vehicles. If you’re looking for a hotel in Ryde, you could start by considering which of these aspects of the town you’d most like to focus on during your stay.

Discover more destinations: Nettlestone, Brighstone, Totland, Yarmouth, Binfield, Ventnor, Wroxall, Sandown

View the full travel guide: Isle Of Wight.