Binstead, Hampshire

Description
Binstead, a small village and a parish in the Isle of Wight. The village stands on the coast of the Solent, amid charming environs, 1 mile W by N of Ryde. The parish comprises 1206 acres of land and 236 of foreshore and water; population, 961. It has a post, money order, and telegraph office under Ryde. The manor belonged at the Conquest to William Fitz-Stur, and passed to the Bishops of Winchester. Several picturesque villas stand near the village and on the coast. Remains of a Cistercian abbey, called Quarr Abbey, founded in 1132 by Baldwin de Redvers, afterwards Earl of Devon, stand at a farmstead 5 furlongs west of the village, and, though fragmentary and mutilated, show some interesting features. A silicious limestone, containing many fossils, and well suited for building, has been extensively quarried since at least the time of William Rufus. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Winchester; gross value, £83. Patron, the Bishop of Winchester. The church is in the Early English style, and embodies some sculptured stones of a previous Norman edifice. It was enlarged in 1876. There is a Wesleyan chapel.