Brightling Needle
Local highlightA slim stone obelisk on one of East Sussex's highest ridges, one of the follies scattered about by the eccentric John "Mad Jack" Fuller
The Needle stands on high ground above Brightling, a tapering stone obelisk you can pick out from miles off. It’s one of several follies — buildings put up for ornament or a whim rather than any real use — commissioned in the early 1800s by John Fuller, a local squire and MP nicknamed Mad Jack for his spending and his temper. Quite why he raised the Needle is unclear; it is often tied to a military victory of the age, though nobody has ever settled which. Fuller’s other oddities lie within a short walk, including The Sugar Loaf, a stone cone he built to win a bet, the Tower and Observatory just south, and his own pyramid tomb in the churchyard. Kipling’s house, Batemans, is a couple of miles north.
