Built in , it has been automated since The formation takes its name from a fourth needle-shaped pillar called Lot's Wife, that collapsed in a storm in The remaining rocks are not at all needle-like, but the name has stuck. The Needles lie just to the southwest of Alum Bay , and are a tourist draw. Scenic boat trips operate from Alum Bay that offer close-up views of the Needles. The rocks and lighthouse have become icons of the Isle of Wight , often photographed by visitors, and are featured on many of the souvenirs sold throughout the island.
The main tourist attractions of the headland itself are the two gun batteries, the experimental rocket testing station, and the four Coastguard cottages owned by the National Trust. A Chairlift operates between the park and the beach. The Needles were a site of a long-standing artillery battery, from the s to , which was eventually decommissioned. During the peak of activity in the early s some people worked at the complex, while the rockets were built in nearby East Cowes. These rockets were later used to launch the Prospero X-3 satellite.
The site is now owned by the National Trust , and is open to the public. In the early industrial revolution, needle workers were often casualties. In the final stage, a pointer held up to needles at a time against a grindstone and could finish as many as 10, an hour. If a grindstone broke and flew apart, it could be fatal, but the most serious threat was inhalation of tiny particles of stone and metal, which caused Pointer's Rot, an occupational pulmonary disease.
Surviving pointers - their life expectancy was under thirty-five years - earned a guinea a day, and long resisted not only mechanization but also dust exhaust equipment that would have reduced their wages as well as their mortality. Nor were risks limited to the needle workshops and factories.
To inhibit rust, eighteenth-century needles were at least in France sometimes packed in asbestos powder before the mineral was known to cause lung cancer. The nineteenth century was the golden age of needle production. Higher disposable incomes, the new profusion of textiles, the introduction of the sewing machine, and the rise of world trade with the steamship and the British Empire all expanded markets as new machinery expanded capacity. The rule of thumb was that a nation bought three to four hand-sewing needles per year per household.
Needles were now cheap enough to be lost in great numbers. By , Scientific American reported an annual production of 3 million needles per day worldwide, with million purchased each year in the United States alone. Most hand-sewing needles sold in the United States were British-made; Americans never attempted to challenge British dominance of needlemaking.
The needle industry shared the nineteenth century's enthusiasm for variety and details of finish, including gold-plated grooves. Tailors, seamstresses, and home sewers could choose from twelve sizes of "sharps," the most common style, which generally had grooved eyes to keep protruding thread from damaging fabric. There were also nine sizes of "blunts," short and thick needles for fast, uniform stitching by tailors, and a range of "betweens.
For most styles and sizes there was also a range of quality and packaging. On better grades, grooved eyes were gold plated. Threading along with corrosion and injury risk has long been the Achilles heel of needle design. Major nineteenth-century patents attempted to substitute tactile cues for visual hit-or-miss. The Calyx-Eye was open at the top, with two angled prongs that yielded temporarily to gentle pressure on the thread but retained it securely thereafter.
Other innovations, like the Eigo and the Filtenax, guided users in threading from the side of the needle or opening the top with the thumbnail. At its peak in the late nineteenth century, the Redditch needle industry was producing fully 90 percent of the world's needs.
But challenges were growing. German needlemakers began to assert technological leadership as early as , when the Schumag company of Aachen introduced a machine that stamped and eyed needles in one operation.
Even in the early s, German manufacturers dominate sewing machine-needle production. With their concentration on hand sewing, British producers were also hurt by the skill's decline in the household and the school curriculum later in the century, and the factories that British firms built abroad during the empire to serve local needs with inexpensive labor have more recently come back to haunt these firms' successors with low-cost imports.
Over generations, the Redditch industry has consolidated into a handful of firms producing premium hand-sewing needles for the world market.
Perched above The Needles is a battery which was completed in as part of the defences for Portsmouth. The battery has a commanding view out over the English Channel and across to the mainland.
It is now owned by the National Trust and is known as the Old Battery. On a visit there you will see two huge rifled muzzle loader guns and be able to explore various parts of the battery including the cartridge store; shell store; a tunnel leading to a searchlight station directly overlooking The Needles; and a signal station which was used as a look-out point in the Second World War.
Incidentally, situated on the first floor of the signal station is a tea room which has one of best views from any tea room in the UK. Above the Old Battery is the New Battery, built to replace the Old Battery as it was feared the vibrations of the guns would caused the cliffs to crumble and collapse into the sea. Here remains of gun emplacements can be seen and there is an exhibition on the secret experiments conducted with rockets during the Cold War. Just along from The Needles is Alum Bay where different coloured sands created during the Tertiary period form the cliffs.
For a detailed account of the geology of the area see Southampton University's Alum Bay and the Needles. So on a trip to The Needles there's enough to see and do to keep you occupied for almost a whole day. Access to The Needles is by bus or on foot from a car park yards distant.
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