Brading Marshes Nature Reserve, Bembridge Windmill and Culver Down

From the Church of St Mary, you leave the town by an old lane which gives access on to a causeway across the Brading Marshes, created by the damming of the Yar. Several varieties of duck cruise the shallow streams, while the thick sedge provides a nesting place for reed bunting and several types of warbler.

On the other side of the marshes, the route follows the Bembridge Trail through farmland next to the small local airport, to Bembridge Windmill. Four storeys high and built of local stone, the mill ground flower and meal, and later bran and cattle feed, for more than 200 years.

The windmill ceased production at the outbreak of World War One, but still retains much of its original 18th-century machinery. The National Trust now owns the mill and opens it to the public in the summer. Nearby there is a wooden bench seat encircling a tree, just right for a rest and a snack.

The walk goes through Steyne Wood, an old oak woodland carpeted with ferns and flowers, and past Bembridge public school to the clifftop above Whitecliff Bay. The view ahead is dominated by the sheer white cliffs of Culver Down, the most easterly point of the great chalk ridge, which serpentines across the middle of the island. Several species of gull are among the sea birds which nest on these cliffs, and peregrine falcons have been seen hunting here.

There are wonderful views to be had from the beacon on top of the down - west over Sandown Bay and the English Channel, and east over Bembridge Harbour and the Solent to the mainland. The guns here are the remains of a battery established in 1902 to guard the approaches to the Spithead. The two emplacements of nine 2-inch breach-loading guns were in action during both World Wars, and were used for training purposes until 1956.

The walk takes a road along the crest of Bembridge Down, past a monument erected in 1849 to the first Earl of Yarborough, founder of the Royal Yacht Squadron. This road and its verges are owned by the National Trust. To encourage the growth of downland flowers, the Trust runs a flock of sheep on the land to close-crop the turf.

The National Trust also owns the land around Bembridge Fort, which was built between 1862 and 1867 as part of Lord Palmerston's sea defences. During World War One, its heavy artillery was used as a coastal defence, and in World War Two it was an anti aircraft post and the headquarters of the local Home Guard.

After descending from the downs onto a road, there are fine views to your right of Yaverland Manor, a Jacobean house built by the Richards family in 1620, and the restored Norman Church attached to it. The manor is private and best seen from the road. From here a short walk across the flanks of a chalk hill takes you back to the beginning of the causeway across the marshes, and thence back to the start of the walk in Brading.