Highdown Rocket Testing Site

22nd May 2007

		Information sign at the adjacent Needles Battery
The building in the middle is the instrument room	Looking down on one of the engine test bays
The natural bowl-shaped topography was specifically chosen to channel the hot exaust gases down and over the cliff where it would disperse in the updraught

Not strictly in keeping with this website, however, I believe this site warrants inclusion due to the important work that was carried out here between 1956 and 1971. The site at Highdown on the Isle of Wight was used for the static testing of British rocket propulsion technology up until its closure in 1972. The respective government decided to close the facility as they could not foresee any future in satellite-based communication technology (how wrong they were!) and consequently there would be no further need for rocket propulsion technology. During it's entire operational history not one single rocket was ever launched at the Highdown site, the premise for this being that such an event was politically unacceptable. However, the pioneering work undertaken at Highdown was to culminate in successful test launches of the Black Knight and Black Arrow rockets at the remote Woomera range in Australia. Arguably, the experimentation carried out at the Highdown Rocket Testing Site proved so successful that Britain at one point lead the world in rocket propulsion technology. Today the site has been rescued from destruction by the National Trust who are in the process of opening it up to the general public.