It’s Tuesday 13th March 18 and myself, Dave Beech & Dave Evans are walking from Brook to Shalfleet, the longest and third leg of our coastal walk around the Isle of wight. This section of the walk will take in Tennyson’s Monument on Tennyson Down, the Needles and Alum Bay. We’ve had a good nights rest at the wonderful Weston Manor B&B and been very well looked after by Vicky, who had already gone out of her way to pick us up from Totland War Memorial the night before. If staying in Totland try out the Highdown Inn just down the road from Weston Manor, the food was superb.
After breakfast, another guest Penny, a vet from Woking, kindly offered to give us a lift back to Brook as she was going there to visit her Mum. We can not thank her enough, it’s absolutely lovely when people go out of their way to help and it means a lot to us. It’s a lovely sunny day, the sea and white chalk cliffs of the Downs above Freshwater look absolutely stunning.

As soon as we arrive at Brook we have to double back on ourselves and walk back toward Freshwater. The path crosses pasture fields before it steadily rises up onto the sea cliffs above Compton Bay. The path is pinched between the cliffs and the busy A3055, but on the whole it’s a very good path.  Apparently there are dinosaur footprints visible down below in Compton Bay when the tide is low, and this is one of the best areas to see dinosaur remains on the Isle of Wight. Fossil hunters can often be seen searching for smaller fossils on the beach. Check out the footprints on this link.   https://ukfossils.co.uk/2016/06/17/compton-bay/

Above Freshwater Bay.
Freshwater Bay is famous for its geology and coastal rock formations that have resulted from centuries worth of coastal erosion. The “Arch Rock” was a well-known local landmark that collapsed on 25 October 1992. The neighbouring “Stag Rock” is so named because supposedly a stag leaped to the rock from the cliff to escape during a hunt. Another huge slab fell off the cliff face in 1968, and is now known as the “Mermaid Rock”. Immediately behind Mermaid Rock lies a small Sea Cave that cuts several metres into the new cliff.
Freshwater was the Poet Laureate, Alfred Lord Tennyson’s home, he lived at nearby Farringford House (on the road between Freshwater and Alum Bay). Tennyson lived at Farringford from 1853 until the end of his life in 1892. Tennyson wrote of Farringford:

“Where, far from noise and smoke of town
I watch the twilight falling brown,
All round a careless-ordered garden,
Close to the ridge of a noble down.”

Tennyson rented Farringford in 1853, and then bought it in 1856. He found that there were too many starstruck tourists who pestered him in Farringford, so he moved to “Aldworth”, a stately home on a hill known as Blackdown between Lurgashall and Fernhurst, about 2 km south of Haslemere in West Sussex in 1869. However, he returned to Farringford to spend the winters.

From near Freshwater’s famous Albion hotel you have to start the steep climb up Tennyson Down and as you do so you pass the Freshwater Redoubt and old Palmerston Fort built in 1856.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freshwater_Redoubt

Tennyson Down is a great chalk whale-backed ridge of chalk that rises 482 ft above sea level and runs for 3 miles west where it ends at the Needles. At its summit the Tennyson Monument, a huge granite cross paying tribute to Tennyson who lived in the area for 40 years. It is said that the poet walked on the down nearly every day, saying that the air was worth ‘sixpence a pint’, (an expensive beer for the day, but worth every penny in his eyes). The views from this spot in the glorious sunshine are outstanding, I can honestly say I have stood at some beautiful places around Britain and this for me is up there with the best. I could have just sat there all day but unfortunately for me we still had roughly 15 miles to walk.

May there be no moaning of “please note fellow Wrong Roaders”, this Tennyson chap was a wise man indeed.

From the monument the coastal path undulates up and down for around 2.5 miles down to the Needles and the views continue to impress.

Finally we get our first glimpse of the famous Needles chalk stacks and the that iconic lighthouse built in 1859. I also know this stretch of coastline in a different way as I used to fish with my uncle Mike and our friends just off the Needles, aboard Arthur Savages boat Private Venture ll out of Lymington. We used to fish just off the Needles when the weather was too bad to reach the deep sea wrecks for fishing. I also caught my record breaking Bass of 13.5lb near here, which netted me the Fish of the Month in Sea Angler Magazine June 1999. If you think the Needles look good in this photo from above you should see them from below, looking back up toward the Old Battery. It really is a great spot.

During the Cold War Britain led the world for a short time with its rocket program and here close to the Needles, at the High Down’s test site, we were one of the main players in a three horse race to space.  The Americans had sneaked arch-Nazi and architect of the V2 bomb, Wernher von Braun, to the US and the Russians had collected what was left of his missile team. But Britain still had the home-grown brains and technological clout to punch above its weight in the race to space.

The Old Battery is now owned by the National Trust and I did have my entry card, but sadly the others didn’t, so we decided to give the fort a miss, but I do hope to return again soon.
So for us it was time to head down the path beside the road into Alum Bay with its multi-coloured sand cliffs and stunning views across the Solent.
Approximately 70 million years ago, the sea bed rose, was eroded and then sank beneath the sea again. The new sea was shallow and it laid down a series of sands and clays. Some 10 million years later, movement in the bedrock caused these sediments to be pushed nearly vertically to form the multi-coloured cliffs that are visible today.

Hatherwood Battery is a battery located just to the east of Alum Bay on the Isle of Wight. It is one of the many Palmerston Forts built on the island to protect it in response to a perceived French invasion. Construction of the battery began in 1865 and was complete by 1869. Today not much is left of the battery as it has been left to decay, with some parts falling off the cliff due to erosion.

At Totland the Solent starts around the back to the north of the Isle of Wight, from here you can see Hurst Beach opposite on the other side of the Solent, the shingle spit that stretches out into the Solent from Milford on Sea. On the end of the spit is Hurst Castle built in the reign of Henry VIII, which is mirrored on this side of the water at Cliff’s End in Colwell Bay by Fort Albert, both forts would protect the straight from the perceived enemy ships of France.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurst_Castle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Albert

This searchlight emplacement was built in 1898/9 at Warden Point. The large metal doors would have been opened to reveal a huge searchlight with just enough room to squeeze around the light.  Inside there was a series of what looked like coiled springs with a large switch and dials erected against the wall just inside the right hand side.  These were called Busbars and as the electrical current passed through them they hummed and gave off heat which was appreciated on cold winter nights by the troops stationed there. Their responsibilities was to open the steel shutters and ensure that the searchlight was ready for maximum use.  This was achieved by maintaining a clean reflector mirror, adjusting and changing the positive and negative carbon electrodes and ensuring the right angle is achieved to form the arc of light.  Records show that the troops felt that the searchlight’s beam was so strong and intense that it appeared as though you could have walked along the shaft of light.  Documents dated  September 1945 record that the Warden Point Battery searchlights had an approximate range of 3,500 yards with a concentrated beam 90 cms.
The metal doors have seen some action with large caliber rounds having punched holes through the the thick steel doors,  whether this was enemy fire or target practice will remain a mystery.