Longford Institute
The Longford Institute on Havenstreet, Main Road was established in 1886 by John Rylands, a Manchester industrialist, who had previously purchased a large house in the village he remodelled and renamed as Longford House - he also built a village gas works and cottages for his workers.
The institute was a place for the 'social, moral and intellectual improvement and entertainment of the village of Haven Street'.
The building originally housed reading and smoking rooms, a library, a billiard room, a refreshment room and a lecture hall.
The 'institute' appears to have closed at the start of WW1 and since then the building has had many uses and names.
Post WW1 it was run by Barton Henry Bullock as the Holmdale Temperance Hotel, he also operated his 'Surprise', Ryde-Binstead-Havenstreet-Newport bus services from the premises
Subsequently it continued to be run as the Homedale Temperance Hotel under different owners, a boarding house, restaurant etc.
In more recent years the building was the Holmdale House care home which was closed in 2015.
Today (2020), the building, now know as 'The Haven', in is the process of being converted to residential units.
