The Needles

These sun-kissed sea stacks are The Needles on the Isle of Wight, part of a ridge of chalk hills which, during the last Ice Age, is thought to have stretched across the Solent to Old Harry Rocks on the Isle of Purbeck. Melting ice then released a deluge of water which flooded land and eroded the chalk ridge, severing the Isle of Wight from the mainland and leaving behind rock formations on either side of the gap. Today’s three remaining stacks are named after a fourth, needle-shaped rocky pinnacle known as Lot’s Wife, which collapsed into the sea during a storm in 1764.
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