Yarmouth, Isle of Wight - Framed Picture - 11" x 14"

Yarmouth is a town, port and civil parish in the west of the Isle of Wight, off the south coast of England.

The town is named for its location at the mouth of the small Western Yar river.

Yarmouth has been a settlement for over a thousand years, and is one of the earliest on the island. The first account of the settlement is in Ethelred the Unready's record of the Danegeld tax of 991, when it was called Eremue, meaning "muddy estuary". The Normans laid out the streets on a grid system, a plan which can still be seen today. It grew rapidly, being given its first charter as a town in 1135.

Until the castle was built, raids by the French hurt the town; in 1544 the it was reputed to have been burned down. Legend has it that the church bells were carried off to Cherbourg or Boulogne.

Yarmouth Castle was built in 1547. It is effectively a gun platform, built by Henry VIII to fortify the Solent and protect against any attempted invasion of England.

In St. James's Church there is a monument to the 17th century admiral Sir Robert Holmes who was at Yarmouth. He obtained it in a raid on a French ship, when he seized an unfinished statue of Louis XIV of France and forced the sculptor to finish it with his own head rather than the king's.

In 1784 most of Yarmouth's ancient charters were lost: A ship's captain, drunk after a court dinner, stole what he thought was a case of wine, as he returned to his ship. When he discovered it was a case of books, he threw it overboard.

Yarmouth Pier was opened in 1876. Originally 685 ft long, it's now 609 ft but is still the longest timber pier in England open to the public, and also a docking point for the MV Balmoral and PS Waverley.