There has been reference to a harbour at the mouth of the River Yar going back to at least Roman Times. Throughout its history the area has offered sheltered waters to all types of mariner.

In its heyday, during the reign of Charles 1, Brading was the principal port of the Island according to Sir John Oglander.

At the time of the construction of the Embankment there had been a decline in its fortunes but substantial ships were still plying their trade up to the Quay at Brading.

On entering Bembridge Harbour by boat it is difficult to realise that you are entering a man-made harbour constructed in the latter half of the nineteenth centruy. Before 1880, boats would have sailed a further two and a half miles upstream along the meandering channel of the Eastern Yar, with its wide expanse of mudflats and creeks, to the town of Brading, the major port of the area. At high water the mudflats would be covered in water, the whole area being known as Brading Haven, the name now adopted by the Yacht Club adjacent to Bembridge Marina.

All this was to change and it was all tied up with the building of a railway line from Brading to Bembridge and the industrial and tourism development of this quiet rural backwater. A grandoise scheme was put forward by Jabez Balfour, MP, an entrepreneur who, through an Act of Parliament in April 1874, set up the Brading Harbour Improvement and Railway Company. The company was authorised to construct an embankment from St. Helens to Bembridge and to reclaim all the land upstream towards Brading, to construct a port at St. Helens and to build a railway from the Isle of Wight Railway at Brading via St. Helens to Bembridge. The scheme, along with the construction of the Royal Spithead Hotel, the purchase of a steamer fleet, including a train ferry, was financed by the Liberator Building Society at a cost of £420,000. The line opened with due ceremony on Saturday 27th May 1882. The new railway would have made a considerable difference to the lives of people in St. Helens and Bembridge, Bembridge growing into a major tourist village and St. Helens into a major port.

The small branch line then operated for many years under a number of owners. The Isle of Wight Railway bought the line in July 1898 for £16,500 – a bargain! In January 1923 the Isle of Wight Railway was amalgamated into the Southern Railway who made immediate improvements to the branch. St. Helens Quay, the present location of Bembridge Marina, became the main port on the Island for the movement of goods and freight. North and South Quays were reconstructed, evidence of which can still be seen if you look closely. Today it is hard to think that the area around the marina was, until the 1960s, an industrial landscape, with railway sidings, a crane, warehouses, a gas works and an engine shed.

On 1st January 1948 the railways of the British Isles were nationalised. It is perhaps sad to say that from that day the Bembridge branch was under financial scrutiny for closure. In the early 1950s car ownership was becoming more widespread and bus services more flexible and competitive. The railway closed on Monday 21st September 1953. Large numbers of villagers turned out to ride on the last train including Mr Herbert Occomore who was, for many years, the Harbour Master and Pilot at Bembridge. He had travelled on the first train ever to run from Brading to St. Helens in 1881.

After closure many changes took place . Up until the late 1950s carriages were stored and broken up on St. Helens Quay. The quay gradually closed to commercial shipping. The harbour was sold to the newly formed Bembridge Harbour Improvements Company in July 1963. The toll road along the embankment, owned and controlled by the British Railways Board, was taken over and abolished by the Isle of Wight County Council in October 1971. The Bembridge Station was demolished in the early 1970s, as was the Royal Spithead Hotel in 1989. However, there is still much to see of the original trackbed that once crossed the seabed.