Here can be found a church that stands on a mound sheltered by the downs, a rather simple but beautifully cared for church with a manor house below it. The  Elizabethan frontage has a wide buttress with five tall red chimneys.

A flight of steps lead up to the manorial church which was refurbished in Victorian times but it has managed to keep hold of its 13th century sedila and brass portaits of Richard Mewys and his four sons. Richard died roughly four hundred years ago but his family have lived on the Isle of Wight for 300 years and owned the manor from the 15th to18th centuries.

J. B. Priestley the writer and broadcaster lived at Billingham Manor near Kingston and later moved to Brook Hill House in the village of Brook and lived there for 25 years. In 1940 Priestly in a radio broadcast mourned the loss of an Isle of Wight ferry which had sailed with the small ships to Dunkirk

"Among those paddle steamers that will never return was one that I knew well, for it was the pride of our ferry service to the Isle of Wight - none other than the good ship Gracie Fields. I tell you, we were proud of the Gracie Fields, for she was the glittering queen of our local line, and instead of taking an hour over her voyage, used to do it, churning like mad, in forty-five minutes."