Afton Down

Afton Down is a chalk down near the village of Freshwater on the Isle of Wight. Afton Down faces Compton Bay directly to the west, while Freshwater is approximately one mile north. It was the site of the Isle of Wight Festival 1970, where the Guinness Book of Records estimates 600,000 to 700,000, and possibly 800,000 people, flocked to see the musical talents of Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Free, The Who, The Doors, Ten Years After, Taste, and Jimi Hendrix. In keeping with the native flora of Compton Bay, a variety of hardy plants grow on the down. Large European gorse bushes grow on the cliff, with the shelter they provide allowing other plants such as wild cabbage and bird's foot trefoil to grow. The Isle of Wight's county flower, the pyramidal orchid (Anacamptis pyramidalis), also grows here, along with ribwort plantain (Plantago lanceolata), the main food plant for the rare Glanville fritillary. A car park is situated near the highest point of the Military Road's route over the down, and allows for walkers to travel along a footpath downhill towards Freshwater Bay. There is an obelisk on Afton Down near the cliff edge. It is inscribed with a memorial to 15 year-old Edward Lewis Miller of Goudhurst in Kent who died after falling from the cliff in 1846. This obelisk was Grade II listed in 1994. E.L.M. Aged 15 He cometh forth like a flower and is cut down. He fleeth also as a shad

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