Three chalk stacks and a lighthouse off the western tip of the Isle of Wight, where the downs run into the sea
The Needles are a row of three sharp chalk stacks standing in the sea off the westernmost point of the Isle of Wight, the seaward end of a chalk ridge that runs the length of the island and here breaks off into the Solent. A red-and-white lighthouse marks the tip, built by Trinity House in 1859 to a design by James Walker and kept manned until it was automated late in the 20th century. The rocks take their name from a fourth and taller pillar, Lot’s Wife, which stood among them until it fell in a storm in 1764 — a collapse said to have been heard on the mainland at Portsmouth.
Behind the stacks the cliffs give way to Alum Bay, whose sandstone is banded in reds, yellows and greys. On the headland above stand the Needles Old and New Batteries, Victorian coastal defences now in the care of the National Trust, with a path leading out to a viewpoint over the rocks.
There is no landing on the stacks themselves, but they are among the most photographed sights in southern England, seen from the headland, from the batteries, or from the pleasure boats that run out from Alum Bay in summer. A chairlift drops from the clifftop to the beach below. The nearest villages are Totland Bay and Freshwater, a few miles east.
