The river at Shide follows the course of the old railway line Photo courtesy of IOWCAM

Now a part of Newport Shide was once a hamlet and it was here that the foundations of a Roman Villa were found, with three of its eight rooms having practically complete mosaic floors, in 1926. Today parts of the villa can bee seen complete with its walls and roof.

The village was also renowned for its earthquakes - no it did not suffer from them but if there was an earthquake anywhere then Shide was the first to record it, as an observatory for recording seismic activity was set up here by Professor John Milne and almost overnight this quiet little hamlet became world famous. But now this has all gone and the work moved to Oxford, and in 1923 John Milne died here and was buried at Barton which is nearby.

Milne was a remarkable man for after going to Central Europe and Palestine and when he was 24 years old he was made a servant of the Japanese Government and found on his very first visit to Tokyo that he was so interested and impressed by an earthquake that he said there and then he would make a study of them and for 40 years he did just that and became the first Professor of Seismology at the Imperial Japanese University, and it was in 1895 that he returned to England and Shide after spending 20 years in Japan.