A cross dyke on the Tennyson Trail above Freshwater Bay.
Image credit: A R Cane
Images
Another view of the ‘Neolithic Mortuary Enclosure looking North East.
Image credit: A R Cane
According to the notice board at The Needles this is a neolithic mortuary enclosure (simply an ‘earthwork’ on the OS Explorer map for the I of W). It’s situated right next to the Tennyson Trail on Tennyson Down just up from Freshwater Bay.
Image credit: A R Cane
A pair of rather lowly barrows near the Tennyson Monument and the footpath leading to The Needles behind.
Image credit: A R Cane
One of the Bronze age barrows on West High Down with the valley that leads down to the rather tacky Alum Bay in the background.
Image credit: A R Cane
There were a number of these strange shapes near The Needles and it’s hard to say if they’re really old or if they’re part of the mauled landscape due to the ‘rocket testing’ station at The Needles Battery during the Cold War.
Image credit: A R Cane
Articles
This is an intriguing little strip of land which extends some 3 miles from Freshwater Bay in the East to The Needles in the West. At the Freshwater Bay end you’ll encounter a cross dyke and then, interestingly, a ‘Neolithic Mortuary Enclosure’. This is quite faint but just about discernible although there’s nothing at this end to tell you what it is, you get the information if you walk to the end of the ‘Tennyson Trail’. The trail is named for Alfred Lord Tennyson, the poet, who lived in the bay and stolled daily on the Down. About a mile from the bay stands a monument to him which replaced a landmark for channel shipping called ‘The Nodes’, a replica of which now stands forlornly in some bushes a few hundred yards further West. Near this are also a couple of barrows largely worn down with age and the feet of countless hordes of tourists.
As you get closer to the Needles there are more and more barrows and a lot of unidentified earthworks, some of which may be attributable to the defences built over the centuries up to the time of the Cold War in the aftermath of WW2. Here, unbelievably, was a ‘rocket testing station’, where ‘Blue Streak’ and ‘Black Knight’ rockets built for the British government in East Cowes were tested, but not launched, before being sent to Woomera in Australia for launching. There’s also an interesting and free museum there to tell you all about it.