Isle of Wight The oldest records that give a name for the Isle of Wight are from the Roman Empire: it was then called "Vectis" or "Vecta" in Latin, "Iktis" or "Ouiktis" in Greek. From the Anglo-Saxon period Latin "Vecta", Old English "Wiht" and Old Welsh forms "Gueid" and "Guith" are recorded. In Domesday Book it is "Wit"; the modern Welsh name is "Ynys Wyth" ("ynys" = island). These are all variant forms of the same name, possibly Celtic in origin. It may mean "place of the division", because the island divides the two arms of the Solent. The Isle of Wight is
History of the Isle of Wight his brother Harold Godwinson "...went into Wight, and lay there all the summer and the autumn; and a land army was kept everywhere by the sea, although in the end it was to no avail". Both men had manors on the island - Harold at Kern and Tostig at Nunwell. After the Battle of Hastings in 1066, the Isle of Wight and the rest of England entered the Norman era. The island has never since been successfully invaded by a foreign army. In the Domesday book of 1086 the Island's name is "Wit". William the Conqueror gave its manorial rights