St Helens

St. Helens is a small village built around a fine, large village green on which cricket is played in the summer. The village, which developed in the vicinity of a 12th Century Cluniac priory (now the site of the Priory Bay Hotel), lies on high ground adjoining the northwest side of Bembridge Harbour. The village overlooks Bembridge Harbour, offering good views of its busy marina and the activities at Brading Haven Yacht Club and Bembridge Sailing Club at either end of Embankment Road. A feature of the Harbour is the causeway leading from the rebuilt St. Helens Mill house to The Duver, once used to impound water in the mill pond behind at high tide, which was released to power the Mill at low tide.
The Duver, situated to the east of the village along Duver Road, is a spit of land and sand dunes colonised abounding with birds and wildlife. Behind the Duver lies the National Trust's St Helens Common, it was formerly a very early golf links and was given to the Trust by the Royal Isle of Wight Golf Club in 1961. The beach, especially at the southern tip overlooking the harbour, is sandy and sheltered with shallow water and little tidal flow. The Duver promenade is provided with the Baywatch Café, beach huts, some of which are made from converted railway carriages that once ran on the Island's railways.The AP1-88 hovercraft, used on the Southsea to Ryde hovercraft service is maintained in a cluster of boatyards and boatsheds on a promentory by the harbour. At the northern end of the Duver, St. Helens Old Church tower, built from limestone quarried nearby, is now whitewashed and used as a seamark, most of the church and churchyard having been reclaimed by the sea some hundreds of years ago. A replacement church built in 1717, safely sited inland on higher ground by Nettlestone Road.

Walks

St Helens Nature Trail - 2 mile nature trail (not waymarked) running from the The Green car park across St Helens Common to St. Helens Old Church (now used as a seamark), around the sandy spit of land known as The Duver (NT), across the Old Mill Pond causeway & back via Mill Road.

Sport & Leisure

• Childrens entertainment - The Green Playground, Upper Green Road
• Cricket Grounds - The Green