The Needles

Abstract

The Needles have always been one of the great scenic attractions of the Isle of Wight, a fact recognised by an early 19th century topographer, Sir Henry Englefield:

‘Nothing can be more interesting, particularly to those who take pleasure in aquatic excursions, than to sail between and round the Needles. The wonderfully coloured cliffs of Alum Bay, the lofty and towering chalk precipices of Scratchell’s Bay, of the most dazzling whiteness and the most elegant forms, the magnitude and singularity of the spiny, insulated masses, which seem at every instant to be shifting their situations, and give a mazy perplexity to the place, the screaming noise of the aquatic birds, the agitation of the sea, and the rapidity of the tide, occasioning frequently a slight degree of danger, all these circumstances continue to raise in the mind unusual emotions, and to give the scene a character highly singular, and even romantic:’