Needles Lighthouse

The Needles are the row of chalk stacks that run out into the sea off the far western corner of the Isle of Wight, and the lighthouse sits right at the end of them, on the outermost rock. It is the banded red-and-white tower you will have seen in photographs, low and stout against a lot of open water. This is one of the busier stretches of the English Channel, with the western approach to the Solent running past the rocks, so ships have long needed a light here.

Trinity House built the present tower in the mid-nineteenth century, replacing an earlier lighthouse set higher up on the cliff, which turned out to be too high and too often lost in fog to be much use. The keepers are long gone now; the light is automated and run remotely, and there is a small helicopter pad bolted on top for maintenance visits.

You cannot get out to the lighthouse itself, since it stands on a rock in the sea with no public landing. The way to see it is from the headland above, best of all from Headon Warren and West High Down, the National Trust downland that runs out towards the point with the old gun batteries on it. Pleasure boats also run out from the resorts along the coast in season for a closer look. The whole western end of the Isle of Wight is good walking, with the Isle of Wight Coastal Path tracing the cliffs above.