The Needles Site

Assurance was a British 44-gun frigate launched in 1747 and returning from Jamaica by way of Lisbon when she reached the Needles in April 1753. Pomone was a 38-gun frigate launched in 1805, battle-worn after Mediterranean service and returning to Portsmouth in October 1811 through Istanbul, Malta and Cagliari. Captain Robert Barrie carried Sir Harford Jones, the former British representative to Persia, official dispatches, money and Arabian horses sent by the Shah to King George III. The two voyages show the same narrow western entrance to the Solent serving very different British networks: Atlantic naval and colonial movement in Assurance's time, and Mediterranean war and diplomacy during the wars against Napoleon in Pomone's. Neither ship should be used to explain every find because later wrecks overlap the site.

Assurance struck Goose Rock at the Needles on 24 April 1753. Pilots later said the rock was unknown to them and that a strong opposing current could have deceived the master; the court imprisoned him for three months but did not dismiss or fine him. Pomone struck at about seven in the evening on 14 October 1811 during a night approach. Her pilot had mistaken the distance from the Needles light, and the sea forced the grounded frigate farther onto Needle Point. The crew cut away the masts but could not free her. Calm wind allowed rescue boats to come alongside before the hull was lost. Pomone's captain and officers were cleared, while the pilot was severely reprimanded. The Admiralty then ordered naval ships not to attempt the Needles passage at night.

Everyone aboard both frigates escaped. Assurance remained on the rock long enough for crew and passengers to leave before her bottom broke. On Pomone, boats from the guardship Tisiphone and pilot boats from Yarmouth arrived within about an hour; accounts place roughly 283 crew aboard, as well as passengers. The valuable official dispatches and most of about 55,000 dollars were saved, though some money was stolen during the confusion. One marine, Bernard Lowry, became drunk after spirit casks were broken open. He was sentenced to 50 lashes but pardoned because of his earlier good character. These details give the site human depth without inventing fatalities. Both were major ship losses caused close to shore, but prompt boat work and weather calm enough for rescue prevented mass death.

The protected area lies between Goose Rock and the westernmost Needle in about 5 metres of water. Waves and current have removed the main wooden hulls, leaving guns, shot, copper sheathing, fittings and smaller objects caught in chalk gullies. Copper sheets stamped at Chatham in December 1804 and a wooden pulley dated May 1802 can be tied to Pomone; three raised guns are thought to belong to Assurance. Buckles, buttons, pins, bottles and parts of scientific and musical instruments broaden the shipboard picture. Finds from the yacht Dream, the brig Anglo Saxon and other losses are also present. Roman coins do not by themselves prove a Roman wreck. A separate timber spread in Alum Bay may be another part of Pomone. Discovered around 1970 and recognised as mixed in 1978, the site now has a diver trail and museum-held finds.

The Needles Site shows why a dangerous landmark can become a layered record rather than a single event. Assurance and Pomone let researchers compare two frigates, their weapons and fittings across the change from the mid-1700s to the Napoleonic period. Pomone's loss had an immediate result: the ban on Royal Navy night passages through the Needles turned a wreck into safer practice. The horses, ambassador and dispatches connect the Isle of Wight to diplomacy with Persia; Assurance links it to Jamaica and Atlantic service. Archaeologically, the mixed seabed demands careful work. A gun without its position and measurements can easily be given to the wrong ship, and Roman coins can create a false wreck story. Long-running surveys by Royal Navy and volunteer divers made that complexity visible and created a trail through one of the coast's strongest local ship traps.