Inside the Needles Old Battery, showing model of the Black Arrow rocket

Needles Old Battery (NT)

Victorian coastal defence and secret rocket testing site perched high above the Needles Rocks.

The military fort was built to protect the Needles passage and the naval dockyard at Portsmouth from the threat of French attack in the 19th century.

The Needles New Battery and rocket testing site comprises two underground rooms, that tell the fascinating story of British space rockets which were secretly tested here between the 1950s-70s.

01983 754 772
needlesoldbattery@nationaltrust.org.uk
West High Down
Alum Bay
Isle of Wight
PO39 0JH