Walk 25 Coastal Path Tennyson Down and the Freshwater Way - 7.5 miles

I had been waiting for a glorious, clear day to set out on my walk along the iconic Tennyson Down from the Needles. Many holidaymakers clearly had the same thought and the road into the Needles Pleasure Park was jammed with visitors. On heading uphill from the car park, I paused to inspect this tacky/retro chic gnome garden.

Looking back from the footpath along the northern edge of Alum Bay affords great views of the coloured cliffs and the pleasure boats drifting in the bay.

It was Cowes Week and I was just too late to catch all but this last big yacht sailing past - so annoying!

The bay can be accessed by chair lift and boat trips around the Needles leave from the jetty.

The verticle strata of the Alum Bay cliffs offer a full sequence from the Upper Cretaceous (142-65 million years ago) Chalk to the Bembridge Limestone of Oligocene age (30 million years old), and many significant fossils have been found here. The Natural England website explains, "The rock sequence provides a complete section from the Reading Clay, which rests unconfortably upon the Chalk, up through the Oldhaven Formation, London Clay, Bracklesham Group, Barton Clay, Barton Sand, Headon Hill Formation and into the Bembridge Limestone Formation...The famous coloured sands of Alum Bay are largely found within the outcrop of the Bracklesham Group in the central part of Alum Bay."

The lighthouse protects shipping from the treacherous rocks and was the first one was founded by Trinity House in 1785, on the clifftop above Scratchell's Bay. Being often hidden in fog, Trinity House designed the current lighthouse on the outer chalk stack and a helipad was added in 1987. The last resident lighthouse keeper left in 1994 when the lighthouse was automated.

The Needles are pointed stacks of a layer of chalk which runs across the island from Culver Cliff to Tennyson Down and then continues under the Solent to Dorset and were once connected to Old Harry Rocks near Swanage.

 

This is the remains of the rocket launch site, when the British Government set out to develop ballistic missiles in the fifties. Prototypes, code-named Black Knight, were designed by Saunders Roe of Cowes and tested here before being shipped to Woomera in Australia. The site was later used for a top secret Space rocket and missile project, with over 2,000 sq ft of control rooms and up to 240 employees working on the development of the space rockets Black Night and Black Arrow.

Leaving the Needles site, the footpath leads up over Tennyson Down (NT), named after the poet who lived at Farringford just below at Freshwater Bay and whose favourite walk this was, saying the air was worth 'sixpence a pint'. The Tennyson Trail begins here and finishes 15 miles to the east at Carisbrooke Castle.

On the top of the hill is the Tennyson Memorial, a granite cross erected after his death in 1862.

Fine view stretch out across to Hurst Castle and the Dorset coast.

The path descends to Freshwater Bay with its crescent of beach and two more chalk stacks.

A few cattle and many rabbits keep the grassland cropped and easy to walk.

The path comes out by Dimbola Lodge the museum devoted to the Victorian pioneer photographer Julia Margaret Cameron.

From here my walk continues north inland along the Freshwater Way cycle track which follows the river Yar. The path and causeway across the river is reached by turning left into Afton Rd then Manor Rd, to come out here at Afton Thatch.

This is a lovely spot near All Saints Church, Freshwater with its memorials to the Tennyson family, and the swans and waterfowl nestling under the bridge.

Most of the pathway is between trees alongside wide reed banks but there are glimpses of the river as we approach Yarmouth.

The area is full of water birds and I caught this heron a way off among the reeds.

Yachts are moored up at the entrance to the river and the car ferry can be seen plying back and forth to Lymington.

The path enters the town by the Old Mill.

Once more I was just too late to catch the big yachts crossing through on their way back to Cowes, but I spotted some stragglers.

Walk Details

Walk Details
Distance: 7.5 miles
Start: Needles Pleasure Park
Finish: Yarmouth Harbour
Time: 4 hours
Bus: Island  Coaster to Alum Bay, No 7 to Newport, No 12 to Freshwater Bay
Refreshments and WC: The Needles Pleasure Park and Old Battery Cafe, Freshwater Bay and Yarmouth.

Walk 15 South Coast Path Brighstone to Freshwater Bay - 6.5 miles

The next stage of my coastal path walk began in sunshine at the Isle of Wight Pearl, but after about 50 minutes, black clouds were looming so we retraced our steps to the car park, arriving just as drizzle started, leaving us no option but to repair to the Wight Mouse Inn for a spot of lunch and complete the walk another day.
I was trying out my new camera for the first part of the walk and apologise for the blurry images...more practice required!

Chilton Chine

Some very decorative Jersey cows came up to meet us.

On the hill across the road can be seen Brook Hill House, where JB Priestley lived from 1953 to 1959.

 Brook Chine

 Two days later I picked up the route again at the car park by Brook Chine.

The Brook Bay rocks are the oldest on this coastline, part of the Wealden Group, composed of red mudstone and sandstone. Here can be found fossils and dinosaur footprints from the Cretaceous period, when Iguanodon and the armoured Polacanthis walked the slopes. This one can be seen on the beach near Hanover Point.

This is a very soft rock and these shots show the erosion process in action.

 

By contrast, Compton and Freshwater Bays are backed by the relatively more stable chalk cliffs.

The fields just below the road at Compton Bay were covered in an amazing display of Pyramidal Orchids, or Anacamptis pyramidalis. Though fairly rare it flourishes on the chalky soil here and has been named the County Flower of the Island.

If anyone knows what kind of moth/butterfly this is, please leave a comment!

Nearing Freshwater Bay, the white cliffs of Tennyson Down stretch away. The white building is the Freshwater Bay House Hotel, which currently hosts a Dandelion cafe.

A sad reminder of Edward Lewis Miller, a boy of "great mental endowment" according to his tombstone in Goudhurst. Aged just 15, the lad was killed in a cliff fall from this place on 28 August 1846.

On top of the cliff is Fort Redoubt, a Palmerston fort, built in 1855 but now containing a modern private residence. A tunnel links the fort with the smugglers caves below.

This great slab fell off the main cliff in 1968 and is known as Mermaid Rock.

The gull is perched on Stag Rock, so called because of the story that a stag jumped from the cliff to this rock to escape the hunt.

No longer visible, this was the site of the local landmark Arch Rock until it collapsed in 1992.

Kayaking is a popular way of exploring the Freshwater smugglers' caves exposed at low tide; walkers do it too, but it is easy to get cut off.

This is one of the island's most picturesque beaches, with its crescent of grey flint and pebble beach.

Just up the lane from the bay is Dimbola Lodge, the home of the Victorian pioneer photographer, Julia Margaret Cameron. Inside is a café and museum with visiting exhibitions and a permanent display of Cameron's photos of eminent local residents, including Tennyson, Darwin and Ellen Terry, as well as a charming portrait of Lewis Carroll's Alice Liddell.

Julia Margaret Cameron [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

East Afton Farm on the other side of the bay was the site of the iconic 1970 Isle of Wight Pop festival, when around 100,000 music lovers descended on this remote corner of the island. A permanent exhibition on the festival is housed in Dimbola Lodge and the legendary guitarist Jimi Hendrix is commemorated in the grounds.

Walk Details
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