Sandown is a seaside resort town on the south-east coast of the island neighbouring the town of Shanklin to the south and is the name of the bay off the English Channel which both towns share, and it is notable for its long stretch of easily accessible golden sandy beach

It has glorious cliffs where many famous men have loved to walk. Lewis Carroll would spend long holidays here. Darwin loved it as much as any place he knew by the sea. John Wilkes built a house here which he called his "Villakin;" there is a memorial plaque on the site of it at the corner of the High Street. On Sunday mornings John Wilkes would go to Shanklin church, and after the service would walk across the fields to Knighton with David Garrick and his wife. Sir Isaac Pitman is said to have worked on his system of shorthand here.

There are delightful gardens on the cliffs between Sandown and Shanklin, beautiful with rockeries and flowerbeds, and a wide view over the bay which runs from the gleaming white walls of Culver Cliff, rising 250 feet out of the sea, to the sunburnt cliffs on the way to Dunnose.

Sandown has no ancient church, but its 19th century church has a west doorway built in Norman style; it was put here in memory of Sir Henry Oglander, the last of the family which came over with the Conqueror and was part of the life of the Isle of Wight until Sir Henry died in 1874. They would be great people in the island when Sandown Castle was built by Henry VIII. It was second in importance only to Carisbrooke, but the sea destroyed it and Charles I rebuilt it. It was demolished in 1864 and the stones were used for the present fort. Not many minutes walk away are the remains of a building 1000 years older, for we are within easy reach of the famous Roman villa at Brading.

At the public library in High Street is the Museum of Isle of Wight Geology with mammoth teeth and fossils found locally.