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What's the story here?

Alum Bay is a large west-facing bay located at the western tip of the Isle of Wight between the prominent Needles Point and Hatherwood Point, approximately a mile to the northeast. The high, right-angled bay features a multi-coloured sand cliff along its eastern side, while the southern side boasts a steep white chalk cliff. Beneath the eastern cliff lies a chalk debris foreshore, with some sand at its northern end. At the centre of the eastern cliff top is Alum Bay Leisure Park, which can be accessed via steep steps from the beach or by the park's chairlift located at the cliff's edge.




The bay is a popular anchorage with wide open access, but there are some inshore dangers that warrant attention. Most notably, the East Long Rock, that lies close to the shore and dries at low water springs. The Long Rock ledge, of which it is part, runs out parallel to the bay's southern shoreline from the East Long Rock for about a third of a mile, with other covered heads. Likewise, a small rocky patch named 'Five Fingers Rock' in the northeast section of the bay has somewhere between 1.5 and 2.0 metres LAT of water over it.




The best time to visit Alum Bay is during conditions from the northeast to the east, when it is mirror-calm-perfect. Although it appears to be protected from the south around to the southwest, a long, lazy swell from well-established conditions from these quarters tends to find its way into the bay.




There is, however, a significant difference between the bay during the ebb and the flood tides. The best time in Alum Bay, by far, is during the ebb, which seems to drag any swell out and trap it behind the bridge. The perfect time to visit Alum Bay from The Solent is to use the start of the ebb to take a vessel down to the bay and enjoy the full run of it on anchor. Then, when it turns, take its benefit back into the Solent.

How to get in?

The Western Approaches to The Solent guide provides approach details. Vessels cutting in from the north should stand off Hatherwood Point as small rocky patches extend 150 metres offshore, both north of the head and close south of it within the bay.




Vessels approaching from the south are cautioned against hugging the Needle's Lighthouse too closely to avoid Goose Rock that dries at low water springs and the wreck of the Varvassi.




The wide open bay and junction of the two very different and brightly coloured cliff faces make Alum Bay readily apparent from seaward.

Although the approaches to Alum Bay are clear, the bay has some rocks in the anchoring area that must be avoided. The principal danger is The Long Rock, a ledge that commences with its drying inner East Long Rock. This inner East Long Rock dries at low water springs to 0.3 metres LAT, which is the shallowest part of the Long Rock ledge. It is equally positioned about 250 metres south of the platform, west of the beach, and north of the southern cliffs.

From here, The Long Rock extends parallel to the bay's southern shoreline, approximately 250 to 300 metres north of the cliffs, for about a ⅓ of a mile. From the drying East Long Rock, the ledge, as a whole, has between 2.4 and 4.3 metres of cover but has two other shallow heads that remain submerged. The inner head has 0.5 metres LAT of water over it and is about 200 metres westward of East Long Rock. The outer head has 0.9 metres LAT of water over it and is located about 250 metres further westward.

In the northeast section of the bay, there is also the small rocky patch named Five Fingers Rock. It has somewhere between 1.5 and 2.0 metres LAT of water over it and lies 180 metres offshore to the southwest of Hatherwood Point.




Five Fingers Rock usually presents no difficulty to the vast majority of leisure craft who come in here. However, the shallower 'East Long Rock' is regularly struck by unwary visitors as it is situated in a position that would appear to be one of the ideal anchoring locations in the bay.




The initial fix is located approximately 500 metres west of the chairlift platform on the beach. From this point, one can visually divide the area between the platform and the southeastern corner of the bay into two halves, with The Long Rock ledge serving as the dividing line. With this in mind, proceed into and prepare to anchor.




Anchoring in the area that keeps the vessel within the top half of the available space will avoid the ledge. Another approach is to simply come in and anchor no further south than 150 metres from the platform to keep well clear of East Long Rock and the ledge extending out from it.




Local boatmen often place a random marker on East Long Rock. Therefore, it is worth looking for something in the area where you expect it to be found that might resemble a lobster pot marker, but could be an informal marker for its position.



It is also essential to stay clear of the area 150 metres westward of the head of the leisure pontoon on the shore. The leisure pontoon is located close south of the chairlift platform. It has a ground chain that runs out 150 metres from its head with its extremity marked by a pink buoy. Anchoring anywhere along this line off the head of the platform will only result in the anchor fouling on the mooring chain and the disruption of the Needles Pleasure Cruises tours for that day.




Anchoring to the north of the chairlift platform is inadvisable. North of the chairlift platform, in front of Alum Bay Chine, lie the ruins of an old pier. Its steel, boulders, and the covered remains of its old legs project from the seabed and extend out as far as 300 metres from the shoreline. This area should be entirely avoided due to the high likelihood of encountering debris, and vessels that have anchored nearby and dragged over it have lost their ground tackle.




Outside of this, the bay offers good holding in mud and clay mixed with sand, with scarcely perceptible tidal streams. Land on the beach by tender.

Why visit here?

Alum Bay takes its name from cliffs composed of vertically layered sands and clays from the Paleocene and Eocene epochs, displaying colors that range from white to red due to oxidized iron compounds. The cliffs have been mined for large quantities of alum since the 16th century. Alum is a hydrated double sulphate of aluminium and potassium, historically used as a mordant for fixing natural dyes, an adhesive for binding paper fibres in papermaking, and an agent to increase the suppleness of leather during the tanning process.




The forces that shaped the bay's name and unique geology date back 70 million years. During this time, the seabed rose, eroded, and sank once again beneath a shallow sea. Between 65 million and 30 million years ago, the sands and silts of the Palaeocene, Eocene, and Oligocene periods gradually settled over the seabed clays. Subsequently, a movement in the bedrock pushed the floor upward again, along with the Cretaceous chalk formation that constitutes the bay's adjoining headland.




This created a land bridge that, thousands of years ago, connected the Isle of Purbeck, technically a peninsula and not an island then, to the Isle of Wight. The two land areas were linked by a chalk ridge that formed the backbone of the connecting bridge, serving as the foundation for a much longer and broader peninsula that encircled the Solent River, which had its estuary situated somewhere southeast of the Isle of Wight.




The remains of the chalky ridge can be seen running, up to 100 metres in height, from Alum Bay to the Needles, and back around to Scratchell's Bay to the south and Freshwater Bay. From there, it continues eastward as a steeply dipping chalk strata ridge passes through the Isle of Wight to the toe of Culver Cliff in the east. A post-glacial rise in sea level caused the separation from the Isle of Purbeck. A series of storms then broke through the chalky ridge, joined to the Isle of Purbeck, eventually leaving only the corresponding white cliffs of the Needles and Handfast Point's Old Harry Rocks that we see today. The recess of Alum Bay is formed when the west-facing soft sand and clay sediments slowly erode back to the northeast along the chalk face. Although subject to slow erosion, the chalk is significantly more resistant, so it remained as the bay's southern flanking promontory.




It was, however, the bay's eastern multi-coloured sands that would make it famous both in the past and today. Made up of three minerals: quartz, felspar and mica that are white in their pure state, their colouring is caused by the oxidation of iron compounds formed under different conditions. The sands would become the bay's centrepiece of what was originally called Whytfylde Chine on a map dating back to 1590. On the Isle of Wight chines are steep-sided river valleys through which the river flows to the sea, typically alongside soft eroding coastal cliffs composed of sandstone or clay. It is believed that the bay was once fed by a Chine of this name, which has long since eroded away. The bay was first recorded as Alum Bay in 1720 after it had been mined for its alum resources for over 150 years.




The first documentary evidence of mining goes back to the legendary Richard Worsley, Captain of the Island, who saved the island from the French invasion of 1545, obtaining a warrant from Queen Elizabeth I to search there for 'Oure of Alume' in 1561. Worsley received the warrant, but no record of him exercising it exists. However, Alum Bay is unlikely to be so named without some sort of works being established here. What is known of alum works elsewhere on the south coast suggests they were quite short-lived operations, so it's possible the Island works also had a brief life. Alum Bay's sands also contained an extremely pure white silica, which was extracted during the eighteenth century. Sands were shipped around to the mouth of the River Yar, where they were stored in the Sand House. Then, they were shipped to the mainland for use in glassmaking and pottery production.




The area's modest development commenced in the second half of the 19th century. The Needles Lighthouse on the tip of the rocks was built in 1859. This was constructed to replace the original lighthouse erected on the Downs in 1785, which, in having a height of 141 metres above sea level, caused the light to be obscured by fog. The Needles Lighthouse was built with a lower light, at 25 metres above sea level, to avoid this problem. The lighthouse was followed in 1860 by the Needles Hotel and the Old Needles Battery military installation. The battery was built on the cliff top above the Needles stacks between 1861 and 63 as part of Palmerston's defence measures to guard the west end of the Solent. Alum Bay got a wooden pier in 1869, and a road to the bay was completed in 1873, linking it and the neighbouring Totland and Colwell bays with Yarmouth. The pier was so successful that it was replaced by a metal one in 1887 to cater to visitors arriving by paddle steamer.




By then, Alum Bay and the neighbouring Totland and Colwell Bays had developed into small Victorian holiday resorts. This process had commenced as early as 1780 when its coloured sands began to be recorded as a matter of scientific interest. Later, the antiquarian and scientist Sir Henry Charles Englefield (1752 – 21 March 1822) described the bay more effusively… "The tints of the cliffs are so bright and so varied that they have not the aspect of anything natural. Deep purplish red, dusky blue, bright ochreous yellow, grey nearly approaching to white, and absolute black, succeed each other, as sharply defined as the stripes in silk and after rains, the sun, which, from about noon till his setting, in summer, illuminates them more and more, gives a brilliancy to some of these nearly as resplendent as the bright lights on real silk".




By the latter part of the 19th century, it had become an essential destination to visit during an island holiday. Day trippers by the thousands would make their way to the bay paddle steamer and journey to the tea shop halfway up the chine. After enjoying tea and cakes, it was time to head to the cliff edge to collect some coloured sands, which they could then take down to the sand hut on the beach to purchase glass ornaments for their sand. Shaped bottles were filled with the various coloured layers of sand, and the Victorians eagerly snapped them up. However, the outbreak of war in 1914 marked the beginning of the end for the pier. Holidaymakers ceased to visit during the First and Second World Wars when Alum Bay was heavily militarised, and access for visitors was restricted. The steamers no longer called, and trade never revived after the war ended, leading to a swift decline. The last steamer visited in 1920, and by 1925, the pier had been declared unsafe and was closed to the public. Entirely fallen into disrepair, it was finally destroyed in the Second World War to prevent enemy use.




During this period, in 1897, an unexpected visitor arrived alongside the throng of tourists. This was Guglielmo Marconi, who utilised a huge mast from the Royal Yacht Britannia to create a 40-metre radio antenna outside the Needles Hotel. By early 1898, he had successfully sent the first wireless transmission to, at first, a distance of one mile to Totland Bay, then eighteen miles out to sea to the steamer Mayflower. Finally, the U.S. St. Paul picked up a message thirty-six miles off the Needles.




Today, Alum Bay, at the eastern extent of the Headon Warren and West High Down, is a Site of Special Scientific Interest. The cliff-top area surrounding Alum Bay remains mainly undeveloped and is owned by the National Trust, which extends up to the edge of Totland. The Needles Battery, at the western extremity out and above the Needles, and the access road to the Battery along with High Down, which was used for rocket engine tests from 1956-71, have been restored and contain museums. The Needles Pleasure Park was developed on the site of the Needles Hotel during the 1970s, and its epic chairlift, which remains operational today, was first opened in 1971. Set in an area of outstanding natural beauty, the amusement park offers various family activities, including fairground rides, souvenir shops, cafes, local glass making and sweet manufacturing. It also plays host to a monument to Marconi marking the precise location where he undertook his pioneering work.



Set in an area of outstanding natural beauty, Alum Bay makes a strong impression on the visitor. It has The Solent's iconic view of the Needles series of chalk stacks and lighthouse, the brightly coloured sands to the east, and the steep white cliff to the south. It remains today the landscape that has influenced and inspired generations of poets and artists, including Keats and Alfred Lord Tennyson, who lived close by. For family boaters, there is fun at the beach, chairlift, and amusement park above. For the older ones, the track up to the National Trust run museums pays dividends, or they are just taking it all in on a summer's day from the cockpit. It has something for everybody.

What facilities are available?

The leisure park above the beach has hot food, cafe's and amusements. Southern Vectis run a bus services from Alum Bay.

Any security concerns?

Never an issue known to have occurred to a vessel anchored off Alum Bay.

With thanks to:

Peter Lemonius of Needles Pleasure Cruises.