At Cowes IOW - Drinking Fountain and Churchill

We decide to make a quick visit to Cowes before getting the ferry back to Southampton and had a walk along the esplanade from Gurnard to Cowes. This is a drinking fountain which was presented to the town of West Cowes by George Robert Stephenson in 1864 and apparently it was restored in 1987. But it is in need of restoration again and is no longer a drinking fountain. I am puzzled by the lettering on it…THE PAVEMENT and KEEP DRY on each side at the top. There is also an inscription as if on a page of the bible ref John Ch IV. Ver XIII. XIV. Whosoever drinkers of this water shall thirst again. But whosoever drinkers if the water that I shall give him shall never thirst. I will look it up!

The birds are rather peculiar, possibly herons?

A little further along the road there was a plate inset into the pavement stating that on the other side of the road the cottage was where in Cowes week 1873 (so after the fountain was installed) Lord Randolph Churchill first met and proposed to Jennie Jerome, eldest daughter of American Leonard Jerome, the. Proprietor of the New York Times. Their marriage bore them their first son, Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill in November1874.

Back home now after a few days on the IOW. We seem to have done a lot of mileage visiting various places there! We had some rain overnight there and there has been some on and off all day but only showers.