Ad Come with us to Osborne on the Isle of Wight, once the home of queen Victoria. Designed in the 1840s by the architect Thomas Cubitt in the style of an Italian Renaissance palazzo, the house comes with its own private beach, a swiss chalet and allotments, where the royal children grew vegetables. Some of the first long distance telephone calls were made from the house in 1878, witnessed by the queen. The house became a Navy training college and a convalescent home for officers after Victoria’s