Cafe and celestial art work in Ryde

There must be many finds in Ryde on the Isle of Wight but the Orrery Café must be one of the best. The café is situated in a lovingly trestored Grade II listed building on Union Street

Inside it is remarkable. It is dominated by celestial artwork.  

This is figurative but a with a difference, instead of traditional figures for the 12 Zodiac figures as well as the figures that surround Zodiac, you will find that the Orrery's artwork features the characters from Lewis Carroll’s famous 2 books Alice in Wonderland and Through The Looking Glass.

It is based on a recent theory that Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) used the known constellations of the heavens as reference for his Alice books.

By the way the coffe is great in the café too