The Swiss Cottage at Osborne House is well worth a visit, and if it is a nice day and you are feeling fit refuse the transport provided and take a walk down.

At The Swiss Cottage area there is also The Swiss Cottage Museum, Victoria Fort and Albert Barracks, Queen Victoria's bathing machine and Alberta Deckhouse.

As you can see in the picture there was access to the beach for Queen Victoria.

Barton Manor is not too far away from Osborne House as the crow flies and was also owned by Queen Victoria, and this too has nice gardens, a carp pond, maze and a secret garden.

We were lucky to visit this many years ago in the early 90's when it used to be open to the public on a regular basis before shutting its doors altogether to the public.

I think it is now open to the public agian on certain days.....

This is the beach area at Osborne House where Queen Victoria and Prince Albert and their children probably used to bathe and amuse themselves.

The Swiss Cottage would be on the left of this picture. Public access is not allowed here when you visit Osborne House.

Remains of a jetty can be seen as well as a curved building on the right.

Blackgang Chine from just over 300m high, just beyond the small paths right on the very edge of the cliff {which are obviously not open to the public} there is the water gardens which are floodlit at night. Not all of BG chine is shown in this image.

Sadly if any more land slips away in this area the gardens may have to shut and all the models and gnomes moved to a safer place.

These cliffs are over 300ft high.

I do not use the 'Layers' options to the lower left of Google Earth when viewing areas except one which is 'Roads'. This becomes useful when following roads or looking for a specific address. With the 'Roads' layer enabled it is better to be at a slightly higher altitude, say 1 - 2 KM from sea level. It is easily switched on or off.

A Broadband connection of some sort is required for two reasons. Firstly the FREE download is around 14Mb, once installed and running new images to display are constantly being 'streamed' or retreived via your internet connection - especially when scrolling or zooming places.

I personally have been using Google Earth now and again for well over a year now with no problems, spam emails or annoying pop up windows etc, give it a try it's cool and it's FREE.

Here is the link: http://earth.google.com/
 

Some more satellite images coming very shortly.......