A museum of dirty postcards and Britain’s coolest bulldog: visit the strange side of the Isle of Wight

Every day the Isle of Wight becomes England’s smallest county: when-ever the tide comes in, the island steals the crown from Rutland, if only for a few hours. Taking the Wightlink ferry reminds you that the isle gave us the hovercraft, Christopher Cockerell’s early experiments there involving a hairdryer and some empty cat-food tins. Less successful as a seafarer was Lord Lucan, who once sank a powerboat off the Needles. It never surfaced, leading some to believe that when the time came to disappear he returned to the area and drowned himself.

Current exports include most of the signage for the London Underground (A.J. Wells and Sons, vitreous enamellers of Newport), and all manner of garlic from the Garlic Farm in Newchurch (fresh, black, smoked, elephant). The plant was brought to the island by Free French sailors stationed there during the second world war — the bland British food, they thought, needed livening up a bit. If you have similar taste buds you could head to Branstone as well, where the House of Chilli offers a ‘Psycho’ range. Gentler souls will prefer Minghella’s ice cream in Wootton. (Before you ask — yes, Anthony was related.)

The Isle of Wight also boasts Britain’s oldest theme park, Blackgang Chine, there since 1843. The animatronic dinosaurs in its new ‘Restricted Area 5’ are seriously scary. In fact the island is big on the creatures generally: Dinosaur Isle in Sandown is also well worth a visit. (Before you leave Blackgang, though, check your pink Ordnance Survey map — you’ll see that the small lines denoting the cliffs there have been tweaked to spell ‘Bill’, the name of the cartographer who drew them.) Other must-sees? Osborne House, of course, home to Queen Victoria’s billiard table, built two inches higher than standard so the 4ft 11in monarch could play without bending over.