Alum Bay is a bay near the westernmost point of the

Isle of Wight The Isle of Wight ( ) is a Counties of England, county in the English Channel, off the coast of Hampshire, from which it is separated by the Solent. It is the List of islands of England#Largest islands, largest and List of islands of England#Mo ...

, England, within close sight of

the Needles The Needles is a row of three stacks of chalk that rise about out of the sea off the western extremity of the Isle of Wight in the English Channel, United Kingdom, close to Alum Bay and Scratchell's Bay, and part of Totland, the wester ...

rock formation. Of geological interest and a tourist attraction, the bay is noted for its multi-coloured sand cliffs. The waters and adjoining seabed form part of the Needles Marine Conservation Zone and the shore and heath above are part of the Headon Warren and West High Down Site of Special Scientific Interest.

Geology

Alum Bay is the location of a classic sequence of upper

Paleocene The Paleocene, ( ) or Palaeocene, is a geological epoch that lasted from about 66 to 56 million years ago (mya). It is the first epoch of the Paleogene Period in the modern Cenozoic Era. The name is a combination of the Ancient Greek ''pal ...

and

Eocene The Eocene ( ) Epoch is a geological epoch that lasted from about 56 to 33.9 million years ago (mya). It is the second epoch of the Paleogene Period in the modern Cenozoic Era. The name ''Eocene'' comes from the Ancient Greek (''ēṓs'', " ...

beds of soft sands and clays, separated by an

unconformity An unconformity is a buried erosional or non-depositional surface separating two rock masses or strata of different ages, indicating that sediment deposition was not continuous. In general, the older layer was exposed to erosion for an interval o ...

from the underlying

Cretaceous The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era, as well as the longest. At around 79 million years, it is the longest geological period of ...

Chalk Formation that forms the adjoining headland of West High Down. Due to geological folding of the Alpine orogeny, the strata in the main section of the bay are near vertical, with younger rocks with progressively lower dips to the west. The sands are coloured due to oxidised iron compounds formed under different conditions. Alum Bay

Chine A chine () is a steep-sided coastal gorge where a river flows to the sea through, typically, soft eroding cliffs of sandstone or clays. The word is still in use in central Southern England—notably in East Devon, Dorset, Hampshire and the Isl ...

begins as a small wooded valley descending eastward from the junction of the B3322 and the road to Headon Hall. It soon broadens into the clay ravine through which the path and chairlift from Needles Park descend to the beach.

Tourism

On the clifftop there is an amusement park with fairground rides, souvenir shops and a cafe. During the summer season a

chair lift An elevated passenger ropeway, or chairlift, is a type of aerial lift, which consists of a continuously circulating steel wire rope loop strung between two end terminals and usually over intermediate towers, carrying a series of chairs. They ...

takes tourists to and from the pebble beach below. Alternatively, a footpath leads to the beach via Alum Bay Chine. From the beach boat trips frequently leave to tour the Needles.

Alum Bay sands

A traditional product of Alum Bay, and a fixture of Isle of Wight tourist shops, was the creation of ornaments using the coloured sands layered in vials and jars.''Handbook to the Isle of Wight'', Thomas Brettell, John Mitchell, 184
Google Books, retrieved 3 August 2008
/ref> The sands were also used for sand painting pictures, a popular craft in Victorian times known as marmotinto. In the past, visitors to the bay could climb the foot of the cliffs and dig out the sand themselves. The removal of minerals from the site is now prohibited by law under provisions laid out in notices attached to the Headon Warren and West High Down SSSI designation. The Needles Park has a facility where people could make bottles of sand, using sand gathered from the frequent rockfalls. In the past it was possible to buy Alum Bay coloured sand by mail order and make one's own sand pictures and bottles at home.

Transport

Southern Vectis Southern Vectis is a bus operator on the Isle of Wight. The company was founded in 1921 as "Dodson and Campbell" and became the "Vectis Bus Company" in 1923. The company was purchased by the Southern Railway (Great Britain), Southern Railway b ...

run bus services from Alum Bay, including two summer-only open top services – the Needles Breezer and the Island Coaster.

History

On a map of the area produced around 1590, the bay is named Whytfylde Chine. It is possible that Alum Bay was once fed by a Chine by this name, which has long since eroded away. Alum Bay sand includes extremely pure white silica, which was once extracted for glass and pottery manufacture.

Guglielmo Marconi Guglielmo Giovanni Maria Marconi, 1st Marquis of Marconi (; 25 April 187420 July 1937) was an Italian inventor and electrical engineer, known for his creation of a practical radio wave-based wireless telegraph system. This led to Marconi b ...

moved to Alum Bay in 1897 to experiment with radio. He installed a 40-metre radio antenna outside the Needles Hotel in Alum Bay. Initially establishing communication with ships offshore, by early 1898 he had successfully communicated with stations at Madeira House,

Bournemouth Bournemouth () is a coastal resort town in the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole council area of Dorset, England. At the 2011 census, the town had a population of 183,491, making it the largest town in Dorset. It is situated on the English ...

and the Haven Hotel,

Poole Poole () is a large coastal town and seaport in Dorset, on the south coast of England. The town is east of Dorchester and adjoins Bournemouth to the east. Since 1 April 2019, the local authority is Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council ...

20 miles away.''My Father, Marconi'', Degan Marconi, Guernica Editions, 1996,
Google Books, retrieved 3 August 2008
/ref>

References

External links

Needles Park official website
*
Grimkie
', Jacob Abbott, Sheldon, 1860 - novel with description of Alumn Bay ornaments and sand pictures. {{coord, 50, 39, 59, N, 1, 34, 34, W, type:waterbody_region:GB, display=title Geology of the Isle of Wight Bays of the Isle of Wight Chines of the Isle of Wight Tourist attractions on the Isle of Wight