The Needles
The Needles are three tapering chalk sea stacks at the western extremity of the Isle of Wight, their brilliant white rock catching the light against the sea in a way that has made them one of the most recognised and photographed coastal landmarks in the whole of Britain. The name was originally applied to a fourth, much taller and more slender stack that collapsed during a storm in 1764, and the remaining three stacks preserve the pointed profile of the eroded chalk ridge from which they were progressively detached as the English Channel cut further into the western end of the island. The lighthouse at the seaward end of the Needles has guided vessels through the passage between the Isle of Wight and the mainland since 1859, its characteristic red and white painted tower one of the most photographed of all British lighthouses. The lighthouse was automated in 1994 and the keepers' cottages that once housed the resident lighthouse families are now used occasionally for visitor events. From the Needles headland above Alum Bay, the lighthouse appears to balance impossibly on the outermost chalk stack, its exposed position making clear why the service conditions for the resident keepers were among the most demanding in the Trinity House service. The chalk cliffs flanking the Needles at Tennyson Down and Headon Warren display the dramatically tilted geological structure of the western Isle of Wight clearly. The chalk beds, which lie nearly horizontal across much of southern England, are here tilted almost vertical by the same geological forces that created the Purbeck anticline on the mainland opposite. The result is that the layers visible in the cliff face are seen edge-on rather than face-on, producing the cliff pattern of near-vertical bands of different chalk and flint varieties that gives the western coast of the island its distinctive geological character. The Needles Pleasure Park and the chairlift at Alum Bay provide access to the cliff viewpoints and the coloured sand beach below, and seasonal boat trips from Alum Bay pass beneath the chalk stacks and around the lighthouse.